The peak of empire, the Amarna religious revolution under Akhenaten, and the restoration of order from Tutankhamun to Horemheb

What this dot point is asking

SCSA wants you to study Egypt across the period from Amenhotep II to Horemheb, roughly the mid to late Eighteenth Dynasty, as a defined historical period centred on the Amarna revolution. You need to explain the empire at its height, the religious upheaval under Akhenaten, and how order was restored after his death. The focus is again on the nature and exercise of power and authority. The Egypt option is examined through source analysis and essays, so you must name and evaluate evidence such as the Amarna Letters, the talatat blocks of Akhenaten, and the tomb of Tutankhamun.

The period opens at the height of empire. Amenhotep II (reigned about 1427 to 1400 BC), son of Tuthmosis III, was celebrated as a warrior and athlete, and his Memphis and Karnak stelae boast of campaigns in Syria and the brutal display of defeated enemies. His successor Tuthmosis IV, known from the Dream Stela he set up between the paws of the Great Sphinx at Giza, secured the empire partly through diplomacy, including a marriage alliance with the kingdom of Mitanni. This shift from conquest to diplomacy frames the later period.

Under Amenhotep III (about 1390 to 1352 BC) Egypt enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and prestige. He built on a vast scale, including his mortuary temple guarded by the Colossi of Memnon, the temple of Luxor and his palace at Malkata, and recorded events on commemorative scarabs. His diplomatic correspondence with the great powers of the Near East survives in the Amarna Letters, clay tablets in Akkadian later found at his son's capital, which reveal a world of royal marriages, gift exchange and gold. His powerful queen Tiye held an unusually prominent public role, continuing the theme of royal women and authority.

The reign of Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten (about 1352 to 1336 BC), is the heart of the unit. He elevated the Aten, the visible sun-disc, above all other gods, eventually closing temples, erasing the name of Amun and diverting wealth from the old priesthood. Around his fifth year he founded a new capital, Akhetaten, at the site now called Amarna, decorated in a strikingly naturalistic art style that depicted the royal family, including his queen Nefertiti and their daughters, with elongated forms and intimate scenes. The Great Hymn to the Aten, inscribed in the tomb of the official Ay, expresses the new theology. Whether this amounted to true monotheism, and whether it was driven by genuine faith or by a political assault on the power of the Amun priesthood, is a central historiographical debate.

The revolution did not survive its author. Akhenaten's immediate successors, including the shadowy Smenkhkare and possibly Nefertiti ruling under another name, are poorly documented. Power then passed to the boy-king Tutankhaten, who changed his name to Tutankhamun (about 1336 to 1327 BC) to honour Amun. His Restoration Stela from Karnak describes the land as neglected and the gods as having turned away, and announces the reopening of the temples and the restoration of the old cults. The near-intact tomb discovered by Howard Carter in 1922 is the most famous archaeological find from Egypt, though its dazzling contents tell us more about burial and craftsmanship than about government.

After Tutankhamun's early death, the elderly courtier Ay ruled briefly, then the general Horemheb (about 1323 to 1295 BC) took the throne. A career soldier and administrator, Horemheb systematically erased the Amarna episode: he dismantled Akhenaten's buildings, reusing the small decorated blocks called talatat as rubble fill in his own monuments at Karnak, and later king-lists omitted the Amarna rulers entirely. His Edict, a long inscription on reform of the administration and the suppression of corruption, shows him restoring order. Childless, he passed power to his vizier, who became Ramesses I and founded the Nineteenth Dynasty, closing the period.

Historiographically, the Amarna period is exceptionally contested because so much was deliberately destroyed and because Akhenaten polarises modern opinion, romanticised by some as an idealist and condemned by others as a tyrant. Scholars such as Cyril Aldred, Donald Redford and Barry Kemp differ sharply on his motives and on Nefertiti's role. Students should stress that the erasures mean our evidence is fragmentary and one-sided, and that the official restoration sources, like the Restoration Stela, are themselves propaganda for the victorious old order.