Meet King Tut’s Father, Egypt’s First Revolutionary
Akhenaten upended the religion, art, and politics of ancient Egypt, and then his legacy was buried. Now he endures as a symbol of change.
In Berlin’s Neues Museum, Akhenaten’s bust bears the scars of upheavals ancient and modern. Smashed by the king’s successors in the 14th century B.C., it was also damaged as a result of being moved during World War II.
By Peter Hessler
This story appears in the May 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine.
Sometimes the most powerful commentary on a king is made by those who are silent. One morning in Amarna, a village in Upper Egypt about 200 miles south of Cairo, a set of delicate, sparrowlike bones were arranged atop a wooden table. “The clavicle is here, and the upper arm, the ribs, the lower legs,” said Ashley Shidner, an American bioarchaeologist. “This one is about a year and a half to two years old.”
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/05/akhenaten-revolutionary-egypt-king/
