Art Museum Journal

Amarna: Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun

Amarna: Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun (gallery view). © McMillan Group

Amarna (view from the south). Photo credit: David P. Silverman

Egyptian, New Kingdom, Dynasty XVIII, Amarna Period (ca. 1353-1336 B.C.) Statue of a Princess Probably from Amarna Limestone and Pigment 31 x 13 x 10.9 cm (12.2 x 5.1 x 4.3 in.) © University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Egyptian, New Kingdom, Dynasty XVIII, Amarna Period (ca. 1353-1336 B.C.) Royal Family Worshipping Aten Possibly from Amarna Quartzite H. 231.1 cm (91 in.); W. 66 cm (26 in.); D. 25.4 cm (10 in.) © University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Egyptian, New Kingdom, Dynasty XVIII, Post-Amarna Period (ca. 1332-1322 B.C.) Statuette of Tutankhamun Black bronze with traces of gold H. 22.9 cm (9 in.); W. 10.2 cm (4 in.); D. 15.2 cm (6 in.) Photo credit: Tom Jenkins © University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

By STAN PARCHIN

August 5, 2009

The long-term exhibition Amarna: Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia debuted on November 12, 2006. Expertly designed by the McMillan Group, the state-of-the-art installation features more than 100 artifacts from Akhetaten (present-day el-Amarna), the desert capital of heretical Pharaoh AKhenaten (r. 1353-1336 B.C.) and the birthplace of Tutankhamun (r. 1332-1322 B.C.). All of the objects on view come from Penn Museum's collection of Egyptian antiquities.

Akhenaten and the Amarna Revolution

The visionary Akhenaten relocated the Egyptian capital and his court from Thebes to an arid uninhabited region in Middle Egypt. The remote site's central cliffs are broken by an unusual gap whose shape resembles the Egyptian hieroglyph for the word "horizon" (akhet). Akhenaten's religious experiment called for Egypt's pantheon of traditional gods and goddesses to be abandoned and replaced by a single deity embodied in the sun's disk (Aten). Its daily appearance through the aperture in Amarna's rocky promontory may have inspired the pharaoh to name his new capital city Akhetaten or Horizon of the Aten. In this environment of religious and cultural upheaval, Akhenaten, the father of six daughters by the beguilingly beautiful Queen Nefertiti and founder of a new metropolis, possibly sired Tutankhaten (later called Tutankhamun), perhaps by a minor wife often identified as Kiya.

Akhenaten's short-lived radical revolution in religion was accompanied by one in the visual arts. The centuries-old strict formalism of ancient Egyptian art gave way to refreshingly relaxed and naturalistic poses in sculpture. Artistic innovations, presumably sanctioned by the pharaoh, eventually led to pictorial exaggerations of the human form that emphasized its sensual curves.

Amarna: Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun includes religious and royal statuary, monumental relief sculpture, artisans' materials, gold jewelry and personal items that belonged to Akhenaten and his entourage. These objects date from before the advent of the Amarna Period to the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, supplemented by digital recreations, elaborate illustrations, maps and photographs.

Statue of an Amarna Princess

Akhenaten's sculptors often depicted the pharaoh's six daughters and queen in many of their stone compositions. However, the exact identity of a Statue of an Amarna Princess (1353-1336 B.C.) remains unknown. The girl's body is draped in a vertically striated form-fitting gown that emphasizes her pubescent anatomy.

Monumental Wall Relief

Central to Penn Museum's exhibition is a tall vertical wall relief depicting Pharaoh Akhenaten and a female member of his family. Carved in profile and facing to the right, the two figures' arms are raised upward in the direction of the Aten's solar disk. Similar to one of the show’s fragments, the god's descending rays of light end in beneficent hands. The gestural representations of both the deity and royal worshippers are standard images from the Amarna Age.

After Egypt's polytheistic religion was restored, the monumental work was cut down, placed face down on the ground, re-inscribed and probably used as a base for a statue in the shape of a sphinx made for Pharaoh Merenptah (r. 1213-1204 B.C.). As with numerous other stone images from Akhetaten, the relief's recycling preserved its original decoration.

Statuette of Tutankhamun

Also included in the show is a remarkable bronze Statuette of Tutankhamun (1332-1322 B.C.). The boy-king who succeeded the controversial Akhenaten kneels, probably before an Egyptian deity from a larger composition now missing. Produced during or after the restoration of Egypt's traditional religion, the young pharaoh's chest and headdress retain traces of gold. A work created after Akhenaten's mysterious disappearance from the historical record, the statue's fleshy hips and thighs, the shape of its elongated face and comparison with similar works of art helped Egyptologists to determine the sculpture's identity.

Source

Silverman, David P., Josef W. Wegner and Jennifer House Wegner. Akhenaten & Tutankhamun: Revolution & Restoration. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum Publications, 2006.