Nefertiti and Akhenaten: The Avant-Garde Power Couple of the Amarna Period
In the latter part of Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty, a new pharaoh, Akhenaten, and his wife, Nefertiti, would challenge the Egyptian status quo by initiating one of the most intense periods of religious, political and social change in Egypt’s history. Akhenaten was the second son born to Pharaoh Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. He was named Amenhotep IV (Dodson). Amenhotep IV would begin his reign circa 1352 BCE (National Geographic) after the death of his father. He would take Nefertiti as his queen soon after he succeeded the throne (Dodson). Nefertiti was a mysterious and beautiful queen. No one truly knows where and when she was born but her name, meaning “the…show more content… For the first time in history, socioeconomic change in this culture was not initiated by ideological or theological friction between its citizens but as a result of the country’s evolutionary process. The first would be an exponential growth of the country’s economy of scale. Secondly, the nation’s demographics changed dramatically by the addition of the conquered Canaanite and Nubian populations. Egypt, as a new empire, acquired the resources, wealth and treasures of the Hyksos. In addition to these economic boosts, the Egyptians could tax these prisoners of war at the same rate as their own peasants, further adding to the revenue to the country. The foreigners were assigned to temple communities as laborers, creating mammoth temple communities. Because Amen was thought to be the physical father of the king and was the favored god of the time, most of the new revenue was diverted to cult of Amen to honor him. With the influx of all the new treasures, a larger temple was needed to house the gifts to Amen and the manpower needed to service the new divine dwelling. This significantly skewed the wealth and power of the nation, leaving the king with only a slight majority. By the time Amenhotep III would end his reign, this margin would be even smaller (Redford) and would be of great concern to Amenhotep IV as he ascended to