Excellent presentation Dr Briana. I've been fascinated with all aspects of ancient Egypt for over 40 years now and I'm still learning. It's great to see young people such as you taking up the discipline of Egyptology. A new subscriber from South Australia. LPH to you.
I find pretty interesting the Amarna period, a revolutionary period in such a hermetic culture with all its dramatic changes. You’re doing an amazing job Dr. Briana, I can’t thank you enough! 👏🏻
Great insightful presentation. Thank you. I have a perspective to share. I believe historians misinterpreted the part you mentioned about depictions of Akhenaten smiting an enemy with Nefertiti and the kids. I believe those depictions are showing that Akhenaten and his family had the “biblical” healing hands where they would pray over people and cast out demons (hence the “enemy” in the depiction is shown as though they’re freaking out)… just like the biblical Jesus. Akhenaten = biblical Moses
Thanks for watching! I don’t agree, I’m afraid. This type of pose in Egyptian art dates back to at least 3100 BC. Akhenaten and Nefertiti both are raising weapons in their right hand and grabbing a fistful of hair in their left (Nefertiti does this in her own smiting scenes), per tradition. The Third Pylon at Karnak has a large scale relief of Akhenaten smiting, weapon and all. The smiting scene on the boat was an art motif that started under the reign of his father, Amenhotep III. The first instance of it is also found on the Third Pylon at Karnak. And this motif continued to be used into the reign of Ramesses III and later. Tutankhamun’s Opet festival reliefs at the Luxor Temple have several instances of this. Akhenaten and Nefertiti are definitely killing people in their respective smiting scenes. These boats are accompanied by other boats where Akhenaten and Nefertiti are depicted as sphinxes trampling enemies, and such boat kiosks first appeared during the reign of Hatshepsut I believe. I should point out that Akhenaten was not a pacifist-there are two stelae that talk about his war in Nubia where his Viceroy impaled 225 people 😮. I’ve got an article coming out about all the scenes of Akhenaten and Nefertiti smiting throughout that appear at several Egyptian sites-not sure yet if it will be open access. I hesitate to interpret the same thousands of years old smiting motif differently for one person when there is no change in the iconography. And for the Akhenaten Nubian campaign, I have a fun little article coming out soon in Ancient Warfare Magazine if you’re interested-it’s more accessible than the academic articles written thirty and more years ago 😃
@@DrBrianaJackson Thank you for the detailed response. The smiting scenes may show as an attack but the tools in their hands are healing tools aka wands. Early depictions of Jesus show him with a rod/wand that he used for healing people. The sun disc that appears in the Akhenaten/Nefertiti smiting depictions denotes the use of vibrational healing. Historians have misinterpreted the sun disc as the literal sun and rays coming out of it but the disc is the vehicle that the gods (specifically sky gods) that descended from the “heavens” to share knowledge about vibrational frequencies. Akhenaten and Nefertiti were connected to the bloodline of these gods, hence, the depiction of elongated heads. I share this info under the premise of being a descendant of those same ancient Egyptian bloodlines that were connected to the divine and used tools to benefit the population. You mentioned Ramesses the third… prior to finding out about being a descendant of these bloodlines, I could’ve sworn it was from the the Akhenaten/Nefertiti bloodlines (which I still do) so I decided to take an ancestry test hoping it would show my ancestors being in Egypt but nope, it came out showing Ramesses the third as a paternal ancestor which put the proverbial icing on the cake for me. Nonetheless, your video has helped me join pieces of the puzzle and I’m grateful for what you’ve shared. May you continue to prosper in all your endeavours
Another interesting video. I'm happy to have discovered your channel. This (of course) leads to more questions. Despite being a Romanist, Egypt has always had a bit of interest for me. 1. Amenhotep III declares his "divinity" at one of his "Heb-Sed" festivals. Wasn't the Pharaoh already considered at least semi-divine already (if not an outright living god) in the Old Kingdom (if not from Narmer on)? 2. So, the Aten "cult" was (somewhat) founded (or at least "boosted") in Amenhotep's reign. Are there any recent "revelations" as to why Akhenaten chose this path? E.g., definite evidence that Akhenaten saw the "writing on the wall" of the encroachment of the Atum priesthood on royal prerogative, as would manifest a couple centuries later or did he (sort of) inherit some of Amenhotep's vanity, or did he have a "road to Damascus" moment? 3. More of a comment on your "scandalous" theory...which I think is accurate (from analogy and "sense"). From one of your previous videos, I asked about "how" did Akhenaten "sell" Atenism to the Egyptians. I think syncretism was a large element of it, as you point out here. The Egyptians seem to be masters of this "art". This ties into my whole interest in "how" he achieved what he did...without getting himself killed (like Caesar) in the process. That is a remarkable political achievement, even if it only lasted for his lifetime. I think it would be an interesting (if expensive) project to try to gather up all of the talatat blocks still used as fill in the subsequent pharaohs monuments (replace them with new blocks) and try to figure out what they can tell us. They are easy to distinguish and I'm always amazed at what archaeologists are able to achieve when pulling items out of the ground. That is, if this is not already being carried out.
I’m covering a lot of this in the book I’m writing 🤣. You’d be surprised how many Egyptologists are not or don’t want to be convinced by my “scandalous” idea. It’s always other ancient scholars who can see it being the case 🤣🙈. Amenhotep 3 made a whole new god which was himself, called Nebmaatre lord of Nubia, and in his reliefs in the Soleb temple in Nubia he is worshiping himself 🤣. Not even Akhenaten went that far! I’ve got an article forthcoming on this god. So yes to semi-divine, but full on god with a living cult, no. I enjoy speculating on the whys but I’m very cautious about standing behind something that doesn’t have secure evidence. The argument that the Amun cult is speculative- a possibility but we don’t have confirmation of it. Amenhotep 3 100% initiated what Akhenaten would turn into Atenism, and this was made even more clear with Zahi Hawass’s discovery of the “Dazzling Aten” town in Luxor. Akhenaten went much further with the idea, of course, and who knows if that was A3’s original vision or if Akhenaten got a little too creative 🤣. Not all the talatat have been recovered from Karnak. I’ve been inside the 9th pylon and it’s still filled. Raymond Johnson has been taking excellent strides in analyzing more and more talatat now that he’s retired. And he and I have been in touch about some that have never been published before, and were never recorded either, or studied since 1969 when they were discovered. I’m working on a monograph about those. But yes, it is every Amarna scholar’s dream to collect all the talatat, but there are 100,000s of them 🤣
@@DrBrianaJackson As I mentioned before, and what you're likely covering in your book, the whole idea of how Akhenaten "'sold" the majority of the people on the Aten would be quite a story. Also, who were his "backers", since he had to have them, given the forces arrayed against him. Given the nature of the evidence in hand, I realize that it may be difficult to ""read that much" into the evidence. We're still unsure of Caesar's exact motives in starting the Civil War, despite having the writings of the man himself (and of others)--did he "really" want to be "king" or was he just progressing the political discourse that had been going on for the last several generations in the late Republic?
This is probably a simplistic comment , but it seems Akenhaten has begun to worship his father A3 as a full god , in year 3. His Hymns therefore refer to him being the Son of the Arten ( A3) . This may explain the split with the worship of Aumn and change of names etc. The Aten is not an evolution of Ra but A3 as the Sun disk god. As the Son of the Arten (A3) Akenhaten cannot worship any other god. Before Pharos were related to the existing pantheon as Demi gods but now A3 and Akenhaten have placed themselves into the pantheon above other gods. All Royal names change as they are now directly related to A3 the Aten.
From the finds it is quite clear that the heretical doctrine of the Pharaoh Akhenaten was the cause of malformation and desertification in strong contrast with the official religion of Egypt linked to the prosperity of the Nile river!
We don’t. We do not know how ancient Egyptian sounded like, especially where vowels are concerned. For vowel sounds, Egyptologists have pulled from the Coptic language, which is the latest form of ancient Egyptian and still spoken today in Egyptian Coptic churches. Start Tyson Smith, who consulted on Stargate, gave them some direction in believable pronunciation. However, in scholarship, Egyptologists rely on transliterating Ancient Egyptian script into Latin letters with diacritical marks, and we “speak” and write in transliteration. iPhone doesn’t have diacritical marks, so I can’t give examples, but we use only 3 “vowels” which is “i” and two forms of “a”. The “w” can be considered a vowel sound in certain circumstances. Iwnw (Heliopolis) for example. In instances where we don’t have access to diacritical marks when typing, we use the key code for the letter that would transform into transliteration with the standardized transliteration font. Such as nTrw (gods); xt (thing); wAD-wr (Mediterranean Sea). Imn = Amun/etc, and note there is no o, e, or u. That’s why all of them are fine. The a in Ra/Re isn’t a real a, it’s like a diacritical mark instead and Egyptologists have had battles over it, but in the end both are accepted. Also, spellings that we use are also determined by publishers because each publisher of journals or books has their own standardized spelling rules, which is why you’ll see various spellings. It’s messy 🤣
Amen=. Ah (hidden) Men. (One). "Hidden One" The word Amen is not a name, it is a word to describe God. The Ancient Egyptians were always monotheistic so to speak. God was hidden, perfect, full, unknowable, etc. One could only use attributes to describe father. Get a yoruba English dictionary. The study of etymology can be limiting, often stopping you at a Greek or Latin word.
They most certainly pronounced aye, ah. I have no idea why one would not consult Africans. It's like consulting late European literature to learn about the original people of the North America. That makes zero sense, unless one just wants to memorize.
What if, the god Aten is NOT a SUN disk/the physical Sun. but a Photon symbol. what if, 3,000 years ago, Akhenaton was trying to tell us what we call God. is a Photon. the supreme LIGHT. for those who don't know. a photon is a God particle of pure LIGHT consciousness. Aton/Photon/Photon/Aton. it's possible that it got all mixed up in Egyptology translation.
I appreciate your interest. Regarding the Aten and the concept of light, Egyptologists Erik Hornung and Orly Goldwasser have written about the essence of light present in the depiction and conception of the Aten. Regarding the terms photon and Aton, this is mere coincidence. Photon is a Greek word and “Itn” (how Egyptologists actually transliterate the name from the hieroglyphs) was in use well before Akhenaten’s reign to signify the sun disc that appears on the heads of various gods. Etymologically, photon and Aten are not related. 🌞
@@DrBrianaJackson the ancient Greeks got ALL, and I do mean ALL their knowledge from ancient KEMET/now called Egypt. Stolen Legacy. by George G.M James. that disk is a Photon. there are NO coincidences in a universe govern by divine order.
@@DrBrianaJackson the ancient Greeks got ALL, and I do mean ALL. of their knowledge from ancient KEMET/now called Egypt. George G.M James/GREAT BOOK. and there are NO coincidences in a universe govern by divine order.
@@mysticakhenaton1701Ancient Kem was of the original peoples of Africa. The Greeks began ruling following the Macedonian conquest, the sea peoples, the Ottomans. All of this archaeology is white washed. Mo se!
Excellent presentation Dr Briana. I've been fascinated with all aspects of ancient Egypt for over 40 years now and I'm still learning. It's great to see young people such as you taking up the discipline of Egyptology. A new subscriber from South Australia. LPH to you.
Thank you so much! I’m very slow with videos because I have too much work, but they’re coming eventually!
I loved this. Glad you posted it
Loved this, thanks for sharing... Love your Dni map too 🙂
I find pretty interesting the Amarna period, a revolutionary period in such a hermetic culture with all its dramatic changes. You’re doing an amazing job Dr. Briana, I can’t thank you enough! 👏🏻
Thank you for such useful and interesting presentation
Hope to find more of this era in other parts of Egypt 🎉
Great insightful presentation. Thank you. I have a perspective to share. I believe historians misinterpreted the part you mentioned about depictions of Akhenaten smiting an enemy with Nefertiti and the kids. I believe those depictions are showing that Akhenaten and his family had the “biblical” healing hands where they would pray over people and cast out demons (hence the “enemy” in the depiction is shown as though they’re freaking out)… just like the biblical Jesus. Akhenaten = biblical Moses
Thanks for watching! I don’t agree, I’m afraid. This type of pose in Egyptian art dates back to at least 3100 BC. Akhenaten and Nefertiti both are raising weapons in their right hand and grabbing a fistful of hair in their left (Nefertiti does this in her own smiting scenes), per tradition. The Third Pylon at Karnak has a large scale relief of Akhenaten smiting, weapon and all. The smiting scene on the boat was an art motif that started under the reign of his father, Amenhotep III. The first instance of it is also found on the Third Pylon at Karnak. And this motif continued to be used into the reign of Ramesses III and later. Tutankhamun’s Opet festival reliefs at the Luxor Temple have several instances of this. Akhenaten and Nefertiti are definitely killing people in their respective smiting scenes. These boats are accompanied by other boats where Akhenaten and Nefertiti are depicted as sphinxes trampling enemies, and such boat kiosks first appeared during the reign of Hatshepsut I believe. I should point out that Akhenaten was not a pacifist-there are two stelae that talk about his war in Nubia where his Viceroy impaled 225 people 😮. I’ve got an article coming out about all the scenes of Akhenaten and Nefertiti smiting throughout that appear at several Egyptian sites-not sure yet if it will be open access. I hesitate to interpret the same thousands of years old smiting motif differently for one person when there is no change in the iconography. And for the Akhenaten Nubian campaign, I have a fun little article coming out soon in Ancient Warfare Magazine if you’re interested-it’s more accessible than the academic articles written thirty and more years ago 😃
@@DrBrianaJackson Thank you for the detailed response. The smiting scenes may show as an attack but the tools in their hands are healing tools aka wands. Early depictions of Jesus show him with a rod/wand that he used for healing people. The sun disc that appears in the Akhenaten/Nefertiti smiting depictions denotes the use of vibrational healing. Historians have misinterpreted the sun disc as the literal sun and rays coming out of it but the disc is the vehicle that the gods (specifically sky gods) that descended from the “heavens” to share knowledge about vibrational frequencies. Akhenaten and Nefertiti were connected to the bloodline of these gods, hence, the depiction of elongated heads. I share this info under the premise of being a descendant of those same ancient Egyptian bloodlines that were connected to the divine and used tools to benefit the population. You mentioned Ramesses the third… prior to finding out about being a descendant of these bloodlines, I could’ve sworn it was from the the Akhenaten/Nefertiti bloodlines (which I still do) so I decided to take an ancestry test hoping it would show my ancestors being in Egypt but nope, it came out showing Ramesses the third as a paternal ancestor which put the proverbial icing on the cake for me. Nonetheless, your video has helped me join pieces of the puzzle and I’m grateful for what you’ve shared. May you continue to prosper in all your endeavours
Another interesting video. I'm happy to have discovered your channel. This (of course) leads to more questions. Despite being a Romanist, Egypt has always had a bit of interest for me.
1. Amenhotep III declares his "divinity" at one of his "Heb-Sed" festivals. Wasn't the Pharaoh already considered at least semi-divine already (if not an outright living god) in the Old Kingdom (if not from Narmer on)?
2. So, the Aten "cult" was (somewhat) founded (or at least "boosted") in Amenhotep's reign. Are there any recent "revelations" as to why Akhenaten chose this path? E.g., definite evidence that Akhenaten saw the "writing on the wall" of the encroachment of the Atum priesthood on royal prerogative, as would manifest a couple centuries later or did he (sort of) inherit some of Amenhotep's vanity, or did he have a "road to Damascus" moment?
3. More of a comment on your "scandalous" theory...which I think is accurate (from analogy and "sense"). From one of your previous videos, I asked about "how" did Akhenaten "sell" Atenism to the Egyptians. I think syncretism was a large element of it, as you point out here. The Egyptians seem to be masters of this "art". This ties into my whole interest in "how" he achieved what he did...without getting himself killed (like Caesar) in the process. That is a remarkable political achievement, even if it only lasted for his lifetime.
I think it would be an interesting (if expensive) project to try to gather up all of the talatat blocks still used as fill in the subsequent pharaohs monuments (replace them with new blocks) and try to figure out what they can tell us. They are easy to distinguish and I'm always amazed at what archaeologists are able to achieve when pulling items out of the ground. That is, if this is not already being carried out.
I’m covering a lot of this in the book I’m writing 🤣. You’d be surprised how many Egyptologists are not or don’t want to be convinced by my “scandalous” idea. It’s always other ancient scholars who can see it being the case 🤣🙈.
Amenhotep 3 made a whole new god which was himself, called Nebmaatre lord of Nubia, and in his reliefs in the Soleb temple in Nubia he is worshiping himself 🤣. Not even Akhenaten went that far! I’ve got an article forthcoming on this god. So yes to semi-divine, but full on god with a living cult, no.
I enjoy speculating on the whys but I’m very cautious about standing behind something that doesn’t have secure evidence. The argument that the Amun cult is speculative- a possibility but we don’t have confirmation of it. Amenhotep 3 100% initiated what Akhenaten would turn into Atenism, and this was made even more clear with Zahi Hawass’s discovery of the “Dazzling Aten” town in Luxor. Akhenaten went much further with the idea, of course, and who knows if that was A3’s original vision or if Akhenaten got a little too creative 🤣.
Not all the talatat have been recovered from Karnak. I’ve been inside the 9th pylon and it’s still filled. Raymond Johnson has been taking excellent strides in analyzing more and more talatat now that he’s retired. And he and I have been in touch about some that have never been published before, and were never recorded either, or studied since 1969 when they were discovered. I’m working on a monograph about those. But yes, it is every Amarna scholar’s dream to collect all the talatat, but there are 100,000s of them 🤣
@@DrBrianaJackson As I mentioned before, and what you're likely covering in your book, the whole idea of how Akhenaten "'sold" the majority of the people on the Aten would be quite a story. Also, who were his "backers", since he had to have them, given the forces arrayed against him.
Given the nature of the evidence in hand, I realize that it may be difficult to ""read that much" into the evidence.
We're still unsure of Caesar's exact motives in starting the Civil War, despite having the writings of the man himself (and of others)--did he "really" want to be "king" or was he just progressing the political discourse that had been going on for the last several generations in the late Republic?
This is probably a simplistic comment , but it seems Akenhaten has begun to worship his father A3 as a full god , in year 3. His Hymns therefore refer to him being the Son of the Arten ( A3) . This may explain the split with the worship of Aumn and change of names etc. The Aten is not an evolution of Ra but A3 as the Sun disk god. As the Son of the Arten (A3) Akenhaten cannot worship any other god. Before Pharos were related to the existing pantheon as Demi gods but now A3 and Akenhaten have placed themselves into the pantheon above other gods. All Royal names change as they are now directly related to A3 the Aten.
From the finds it is quite clear that the heretical doctrine of the Pharaoh Akhenaten was the cause of malformation and desertification in strong contrast with the official religion of Egypt linked to the prosperity of the Nile river!
Excelent i have been Amarna twice.......
This kings given name is Mo Se Perura. His kingly name is Akin Aton You will find him on the kings list.
Not at Karnark. Not at Abydos. So where?
How do you know witch vowel to use in Amon / Amen / Amun and Ra / Re ?
We don’t. We do not know how ancient Egyptian sounded like, especially where vowels are concerned. For vowel sounds, Egyptologists have pulled from the Coptic language, which is the latest form of ancient Egyptian and still spoken today in Egyptian Coptic churches. Start Tyson Smith, who consulted on Stargate, gave them some direction in believable pronunciation. However, in scholarship, Egyptologists rely on transliterating Ancient Egyptian script into Latin letters with diacritical marks, and we “speak” and write in transliteration. iPhone doesn’t have diacritical marks, so I can’t give examples, but we use only 3 “vowels” which is “i” and two forms of “a”. The “w” can be considered a vowel sound in certain circumstances. Iwnw (Heliopolis) for example. In instances where we don’t have access to diacritical marks when typing, we use the key code for the letter that would transform into transliteration with the standardized transliteration font. Such as nTrw (gods); xt (thing); wAD-wr (Mediterranean Sea). Imn = Amun/etc, and note there is no o, e, or u. That’s why all of them are fine. The a in Ra/Re isn’t a real a, it’s like a diacritical mark instead and Egyptologists have had battles over it, but in the end both are accepted. Also, spellings that we use are also determined by publishers because each publisher of journals or books has their own standardized spelling rules, which is why you’ll see various spellings. It’s messy 🤣
Amen=. Ah (hidden) Men. (One). "Hidden One" The word Amen is not a name, it is a word to describe God. The Ancient Egyptians were always monotheistic so to speak. God was hidden, perfect, full, unknowable, etc. One could only use attributes to describe father. Get a yoruba English dictionary. The study of etymology can be limiting, often stopping you at a Greek or Latin word.
They most certainly pronounced aye, ah. I have no idea why one would not consult Africans. It's like consulting late European literature to learn about the original people of the North America. That makes zero sense, unless one just wants to memorize.
What if, the god Aten is NOT a SUN disk/the physical Sun. but a Photon symbol. what if, 3,000 years ago, Akhenaton was trying to tell us what we call God. is a Photon. the supreme LIGHT. for those who don't know. a photon is a God particle of pure LIGHT consciousness. Aton/Photon/Photon/Aton. it's possible that it got all mixed up in Egyptology translation.
I appreciate your interest. Regarding the Aten and the concept of light, Egyptologists Erik Hornung and Orly Goldwasser have written about the essence of light present in the depiction and conception of the Aten. Regarding the terms photon and Aton, this is mere coincidence. Photon is a Greek word and “Itn” (how Egyptologists actually transliterate the name from the hieroglyphs) was in use well before Akhenaten’s reign to signify the sun disc that appears on the heads of various gods. Etymologically, photon and Aten are not related. 🌞
@@DrBrianaJackson the ancient Greeks got ALL, and I do mean ALL their knowledge from ancient KEMET/now called Egypt. Stolen Legacy. by George G.M James. that disk is a Photon. there are NO coincidences in a universe govern by divine order.
@@DrBrianaJackson the ancient Greeks got ALL, and I do mean ALL. of their knowledge from ancient KEMET/now called Egypt. George G.M James/GREAT BOOK. and there are NO coincidences in a universe govern by divine order.
@@mysticakhenaton1701Ancient Kem was of the original peoples of Africa. The Greeks began ruling following the Macedonian conquest, the sea peoples, the Ottomans. All of this archaeology is white washed. Mo se!
@@aaronellinger2662 yes, I KNOW.
Amen Ra Ptah
Follow those alleged triune god heads, you will see all of this with new eyes.