The Female Body of Akhenaten

Akhenaten was the pharaoh of Egypt best known for introducing a form of monotheism to ancient Egypt during the Amarna Age. This form of monotheism was represented by the worship of the sun god Aten . Akhenaten reigned in the mid-1300s B.C. He was married to Nefertiti and was the father of Tutankhamun, also known as King Tut.

According to Dr. Irwin Braverman, a Yale University physician, Akhenaten had “an androgynous appearance. He had a female physique with wide hips and breasts.”

Dr. Braverman said that the female form of Akhenaten’s body was due to a genetic mutation that caused the pharaoh’s body to convert more male hormones to female hormones than needed.

Read the news report here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Amarna Age, Akhenaten, Archaeology, Irwin Braverman

Life in Tell el-Amarna Was Tough

Image: Akhenaten





Archaeologists have discovered that many of the people who worked at Tell el-Amarna were sick, and worked under harsh conditions. Archaeologists have studied the remains of ordinary ancient Egyptians found in a cemetery in Tell el-Amarna and the results show that many Egyptians suffered from anemia, fractured bones, stunted growth, and high juvenile mortality rates.

Tell el-Amarna was the capital of ancient Egypt during the reign of Akhenaten, the Pharaoh who ruled Egypt between 1379 and 1362 BC. Akhenaten abolished the worship of Egyptian gods in favor of Aten, the sun god. Akhenaten built and lived in Tell el-Amarna for about 15 years. The city was abandoned after his death.

Read the news report by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Akhenaten, Archaeology, Tell e-Amarna

Nefertiti’s Eyes

Nefertiti was one of the most famous women of all ancient Egypt. She was the wife of Akhenaten. Her name means “the beautiful woman has come.” Her bust can be seen in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. Not much is known about her. She appeared with Akhenaten during his fourth year at el-Amarna, which was Akhenaten’s new city.

One peculiar characteristic of Nefertiti’s famous bust is the shape of her eye. In an article published in Archaeology, Earl L. Ertman wrote:

One of the earliest appearances of Nefertiti’s unusual eye shape is on a stela showing the royal family. Found at Amarna and now in Berlin, it is dated by an inscription to before years 8 through 12 of Akhenaten’s reign, or around 1350 B.C. On the stela, however, Akhenaten’s eye shape is “normal” and resembles those seen on sculptures of him in Thebes, but Nefertiti’s is not. So this stela may show a real, physical condition.

It could be that Nefertiti had an epicanthic fold, a piece of skin from the upper eyelid covering the inner edge of the eye. This feature is found not just in people of East Asian descent, but also in individuals with a number of different syndromes--groups of symptoms characteristic of an abnormality--some of which are genetically based. Some syndromes are debilitating, others less so, and still others are passed only from mothers to daughters.

The article on Nefertiti’s eye was published in the March-April issue of Archaeology and it is available free online.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Akhenaten, Amarna Age, King Tut, Nefertiti