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red, the people of Amarna and all those faithful to the new religion would return to the old
cults. Why is it that such a clever Pharaoh like Akhenaten never thought about this and never
considered the danger of the clergy of Amon? What could Akhenaten have done to prevent
the death of his religion after his own death?
I do not understand the reasoning. In many ways Maat was promoted as a major concept at
Amarna and clearly as the arbiter of good and just conduct. In the tomb of Ay, the Aten is said
to be the ‘Prince of Maat’, her name written using the traditional determinative of the seated
goddess wearing the maat-feather. The eastern desert was the ‘place of Maat’. Akhenaten re-
peatedly states that he ‘lived on Maat’, as if it were his food. His courtiers praised him for
helping them to distinghish Maat from its opposite. I see this evidence as pointing to Akhena-
ten as a teacher of what adherence to Maat really meant. Rather than destroying it, I would
see the evidence as pointing to Akhenaten promoting Maat more fervently than ever.
We have only the Boundary Stelae to tell us what was in Akhenaten’s mind. They limit his in-
tentions to the foundation of Akhetaten. All that he did – so he tells us – was for the benefit of
the Aten. Once Akhetaten had been created, Akhenaten had fulfilled the vision that he gives us
in those texts. I have oftern wondered if a moment came when, realising that he had done
what he set out to do, he thought of something further. Or was he then content just to rule in
his own inimitable style? I do not know.
We do not know if Akhenaten refrained from nominating a successor. We can only see the
history of the period through the reliefs and carved texts. The people themelves will have wit-
nessed it and participated in it as part of a society of living and very active individuals, a very
different experience. The modern debates on the subject reveal all too clearly that what ac-
tually happened was mostly not made the subject of monumental record. But I see no reason
to think that Ankh-kheperura Smenkhkara was not the nominated successor, married (logical-
ly enough) to Meretaten. Explanations which seek to avoid this conclusion seem to me to be
perverse.
The mud-brick pylon at the Great Aten Temple being uncovered during spring 2015. View to the south. The mud pavement of the interior of the temple
enclosure is to the left.