Tutankhamun's Amarna: A Review
Ancient Egypt's City in the Sun Exhibition at Penn Museum
Some 100 objects in "Amarna: Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun" describe Egyptian civilization during the reigns of 18th-Dynasty pharaohs Akhenaten and Tutankhamun.
More than 100 works of art and objects from the capital city of the "heretic" pharaoh Akhenaten are expertly described in Amarna: Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun. This long-term exhibition, on view at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, is superbly organized by David P. Silverman, Jennifer Wegner and Joseph Wegner. Dr. Silverman is the national curator of the touring exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.
Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten and His World
In an attempt to break with polytheism, the visionary and enigmatic Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (r. 1353-1336 B.C.) shifted Egypt's capital and his court from Thebes to an uninhabited region in Middle Egypt. Its remote central cliffs, distinguished by an unusual aperture, resemble in shape the Egyptian hieroglyph for "horizon" (akhet). The ruler's religious experiment demanded that Egypt's traditional deities be abandoned and replaced by a single god embodied in the sun's disk (Aten). Its daily appearance through the location's unique rock formation may have inspired the pharaoh to name his new city Akhetaten (Horizon of the Aten). In art, rays of light emanating from the Aten's solar disk were depicted as outstretched arms terminating in hands; they carried symbols of life and longevity to the royal family.
In an environment of upheaval, Amenhotep IV renamed himself Akhenaten ("Effective Spirit of Aten").The father of six daughters by the beguilingly beautiful Queen Nefertiti and founder of a short-lived metropolis and religious revolution, he sired Tutankhaten (later called Tutankhamun) by a minor wife often identified as Kiya.
Akhenaten's radicalism in religion was accompanied by a similar movement in the visual arts. The centuries-old strict formalism of ancient Egyptian sculpture gave way to a refreshingly relaxed and naturalistic style of art. Aesthetic innovations, presumably sanctioned by the pharaoh, eventually led to pictorial exaggerations of the human form that emphasized its sensual curves.
The Exhibition
Adjacent to Penn Museum's recently refurbished Lower Egyptian Gallery, this state-of-the art presentation describes Egyptian art and culture during the 18th Dynasty's turbulent Amarna Period (ca. 1353-1336 B.C.). The exhibition is divided into four sections:
- Traditional Royal Power: Reflections in Culture;
- Radical Power: The Amarna Experiment;
- The City of Amarna; and
- The Power of Reaction and Conservatism: Tutankhamun and the Restoration
The galleries are separated beyond their midpoint by an oversized image of Akhenaten emblazoned upon a semi-transparent linen scrim. And the exhibition concludes with objects produced during polytheism's return to Egypt under the brief rule of the boy king Tutankhamun.
Amarna: Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun features religious and pharaonic statuary, monumental relief sculpture, artisans' materials, gold jewelry and personal items that belonged to Akhenaten and his entourage. The works on display are complemented by maps, photographs and other illustrative materials.
Source:
- Silverman, David P., Joseph W. Wegner amd Jennifer Wegner. Akhenaten and Tutankhamun: Revolution and Restoration. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
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