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We know that during the reign of Horemheb, they started the demolition and dismantling of the buildings of
Akhetaton, whose materials were reused in the new structures that were rising in nearby towns, especially in
Hermopolis. However, in Akhetaton was found an ostracon inscribed with the cartouches of Horemheb and
Seti I. Also, in 1922 archaeologists uncovered buildings and debris that were more recent than the reign of
Akhenaten. They also discovered traces of what could be a small sanctuary where appears the name of Ho-
remheb in the precincts of the Great
Temple of Aton. These are obvious
signs of the occupation of the city, or
part of it, and therefore it seems
that the general belief that Amarna
was abandoned after the fall of
Akhenaten's reign is not correct. So
- why on one hand did they want to
dismantle the city of the Pharaoh
considered heretical and, on the
other, they built other sanctuaries
leaving evidence that life and reli-
gious activities continued to be exer-
cised?
The Horemheb evidence (the first
piece to be found was a block by
the Petrie/Carter expedition of
1891/2) amounts to very little and
could have been a single small shri-
ne honouring Horemheb himself,
put up as the serious demolition of
the Great Aten Temple began. At
the far southern end of the city,
where stands the modern village of
el-Hagg Qandil, occupation conti-
nued through to late in the New
Kingdom and perhaps beyond.
This was established in 1922 by the
EES excavation of the ‘River Temple’
site which was, in fact, an area of
housing of the late New Kingdom
or even later. The village or small
town was there probably because it
served the quarries at Harnub.
The abandonment of the greater part of Amarna is likely to have had two aspects. One was the drastic reduction
of its population, except at its southern end. The demolition of the stone buildings would have required labourers
but they might have set up rudimentary camps amongs the stone ruins themselves. The Horemheb/Sety I ostra-
con (which cannot be located now and is known only from photographs and the brief comment in JEA) was
found not so far from the Central City and does, indeed, imply that people were still living in houses in that area
although they are otherwise undetectable. The city would also have lain open to people scavenging for re-usable
materials and buried treasured.
The other aspect was the decision (nowhere recorded but inevitable) to withdraw the main administrative appa-
ratus from Amarna, thus the archives and the stores of commodities and manufactured goods held in extensive
storerooms. The most likely time for this is early in the reign of Tutankhamun. Once this had been done, and the
top tier of administrators had left, much of the population is bound to have left also since so many people must
have been dependent in one way or another on senior officialdom.
A piece of limestone cornice decorated with the cartouches of the Aten. Found in debris at the Great Aten Temple
and probably broken up and thrown away before the temple was rebuilt some time after Akhenaten’s 12
th
regnal year.