Akhenaten Essay Topics

Angles to argue from

1. Akhenaten began his role as Pharaoh in a ‘traditional’ New Kingdom manner.

2. Akhenaten’s visual representation of the living Aten is proof of his religious changes.

3. Giving Aten religious supremacy would have caused considerable conflict in the religious hierarchy of Egypt.

4. Akhenaten’s religion was ‘reactionary’ not ‘revolutionary’.

5. Akhenaten alone was the intermediary between humanity and Aten and this was a cause of conflict.

6. Akhenaten used his art to reflect the relationship between royalty and the new god.

7. Akhenaten maintained the traditional expectations of a New Kingdom Pharaoh in the conduct of his foreign relations during his reign.

8. Akhenaten’s treatment of Nefertiti was a unique feature of his reign.

9. Akhenaten’s tomb provides support of his rejection of both the religious beliefs of previous Pharaohs and of the expectations of a New Kingdom Pharaoh.

10. The events following Akhenaten’s death reveal the extent of the conflict engendered by his religious changes.