The Forgotten Alien Pharaoh | Akhenaten

This video will be about the Pharaoh Akhenaten and his strange life. Over 3000 years ago, this king began a revolution, demolishing centuries of the traditional ancient Egyptian religion. He turned his back on the gods of Egypt but his new religion resulted in extreme hostility from the people and after his death, his successors tried to erase his existence from history. Let's delve into the life of this mysterious pharaoh. Akhenaten came to the throne of Egypt in 1353 BC. Depictions of him show him with a strange alien-like physique, with a drooping belly, a long and thin face with wide eyes and long spindly arms. The usual depictions of the pharaohs were fit and masculine, but that wasn't the only thing that was different about Akhenaten. When he ascended to the throne, everyone believed in the ancient Egyptian religion which was ingrained in their culture. They believed that many deities were amid their presence and controlled the world. There were many, such as Ra, the god of the sun, Horus, the god of the sky and Nath, the goddess of the cosmos and fate, amongst many other gods. The ancient pharaohs of Egypt were said to possess divine powers. They would sustain the gods through rituals and offerings so they could maintain balance and harmony in the land, in order to repel chaos. Due to this, enormous amounts of money would be dedicated to the temples and religious rituals. All of these beliefs came under tremendous threat when Akhenaten would ascend to the throne. At the beginning of Akhenaten's reign, he left the ancient Egyptian religion untouched. But he did begin to build strange new temples, many of which had no roofs, so that sunlight would always beam inside them. Akhenaten was preparing Egypt for a religious reform which he would introduce in the fifth year of his reign. Suddenly, one day, he announced that Aten was the supreme god and must be worshipped. But he did initially allow the worship of the ancient traditional gods. Later, Akhenaten would announce that the old gods were dead and Aten was the one and only god. This is believed by many to be the first monotheistic religion. But what is Aten? Aten was represented by the disk of the sun and was originally an aspect of Ra, the god of the sun. Aten is portrayed as a disk with life-giving rays of light coming out with hands on the end of them. But Aten by nature was everywhere and intangible because he was the sunlight energy in the world, so he didn't have physical representations that the other Egyptian gods had as he transcended human or animal form. In Akhenaten's poem called The Great Hymn to the Aten, he calls Aten the creator, giver of life, and nurturing spirit of the world. In the poem, it also reflects Aten's love for humanity. It says, Aten bends low near the earth to watch over his creation. He takes his place in the sky for the same purpose. He wearies himself into the service of the creatures. He shines for them all. He gives them the sun and sends them the rain. The unborn child and the baby chick are cared for, and Akhenaten asks his divine father to lift up the creatures for his sake, so that they might aspire to the condition of perfection of his father Aten. Although the pharaohs of Egypt were thought to be living gods and divine, in this poem, Akhenaten presents himself not as a god, but as the son of Aten, reinforcing the belief that Aten is the one and only god. This was the belief of Akhenaten, but he wouldn't have an easy time convincing all of Egypt to join him in his new religion. Initially, Akhenaten presented Aten to the Egyptian people as a variant of the supreme deity Amun-Ra, so that they could somewhat relate to what he was saying. But soon enough, all idols depicting Aten were banned and destroyed, as the unseen spirit of Aten could not be represented with anything created by man. During this time, Akhenaten began destroying and defacing the temples of the ancient Egyptian gods and disbanded their priesthoods. Soon enough, Akhenaten also began to build a new capital city, today it is known as Amarna. At the time of his birth, Egypt had two ancient capitals, Thebes, which was the religious centre in the south, and Memphis, which was the political centre 400 miles to the north. When Akhenaten began building his new city, he placed it far from the other two capital cities, on an isolated desert site. But why did he build his new capital there? The architecture of the remains of the city gives us some clues. A usual block of stone in ancient Egyptian masonry weighs about two tons, but the blocks in Akhenaten's new city weighed around 50kg, which could be carried by one or two workers. Many architects and archaeologists have speculated that due to this, Akhenaten was in a rush to build his new city. This may be as Akhenaten's policies regarding religion grew stricter, the people of Thebes became increasingly hostile, which may have driven Akhenaten out to build a new utopia, where he and all of his loyal followers could worship Aten, but there is also another reason. The ancient Egyptian temples were the pillars of the Egyptian economy, providing thousands of jobs for regular people. As the temples closed down, many people would lose their livelihoods and begin to live in extreme poverty. This presented a problem in Thebes and Akhenaten couldn't solve the problem fast enough, so he abandoned the capital city and with the seized assets of the temple, he could use them for the construction of his new capital. Many historians speculate that Akhenaten was the victim of assassination attempts due to him bankrupting many of the common people and because of his new religious ideas. These attempts on his life would be his breaking point that caused him to abandon Thebes. Akhenaten died after around 17 years of rule due to unknown circumstances and his body was then placed in a tomb. In the years following the burial, his sarcophagus was destroyed and was left in the Akhenaten necropolis. Now when it comes to modern day religion, there are many theories regarding Akhenaten. One such theory suggests that Moses was actually born into an Egyptian household rather than being born a Hebrew slave. The theory proposes that Moses had been a priest of Akhenaten who fled Egypt after the pharaoh's demise and continued the core of his ideologies through a different religion. Today, nothing remains of Akhenaten's capital city. When the pharaoh died, his religion and city died with him, left to be reclaimed by the desert. Most images and sculptures of Akhenaten were completely destroyed and to the ancient Egyptians, destroying a king's image destroyed his place in the afterlife. This conveys an obsessive hatred to the man they once revered as a god on earth. They would bring down the temples dedicated to Aten. Akhenaten's image would be removed from any building, sculpture or document that could be found. The Egyptians tried to erase his very existence, but fragments of his life are re-emerging from the desert. In 1907, a tomb was discovered with nothing inside, except a burial chamber with a body in it. There were four magical blocks around the sarcophagus, but this tomb was very strange, as the magical blocks were turned inwards instead of outwards. This means that whoever turned these blocks didn't want to protect the mummy from the outer world, they wanted to protect the outer world from whatever was inside the tomb. The depiction of the face on the coffin had been destroyed, leaving just one eye, and the name of the person in the tomb had been scratched out. There were strange inscriptions on the walls saying, the evil one shall not live again. Archaeologists and historians believe that this no doubt are the remains of Akhenaten's resting place. Some theories suggest that due to Akhenaten's unique appearance and religious beliefs, that he did not come from this world. As he introduced the first monotheistic religion to mankind, and because of this, was shunned and erased from history. So who was Akhenaten? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section down below. If you enjoyed the video, make sure to like, subscribe and share, and I'll see you all soon, for another history profile.