[[File:Akhenaten.jpg|right|thumb|Pharaoh Akhenaten]]
'''Akhenaten''', also Akhenaton, Ikhnaton, or Amenhotep IV, was [[pharaoh]] of [[Egypt]] from 1352 - 1336 [[B.C.]] a member of the Eighteenth dynastyDynasty. He led a religious revolution, rejected the traditional gods of Egypt, and worshiped the disk of the Sun, which he called [[Aten]]. He moved the capital from [[Thebes]] to Akhenaten (modern [[Amarna]]) to escape the influence of the priests of [[Amun]].
Statues of him show an artistic form new in Egypt, including various deformities which have led some scholars to conclude he had some kind of deformity or genetic disease. A thorough examination of the royal mummies did not uncover evidence of unusual diseases or deformities, so the depictions are most likely an artistic style.<ref name=Hawass>Hawass, Zahi, PhD, et al., "[http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=185393 Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun's Family]", ''Journal of the American Medical Association''</ref>
==Monotheistic revolution==
The earliest Egyptian gods were nature gods. Such gods were typically associated with a particular city or other locality. With the rise of the pharaonic state, these gods were organized into a pantheon headed by a chief god, analogous to the structure of the royal court. Thutmose III (r. 1479-1425 B.C.) invaded Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. These wars had exposed Egyptians, particularly those who had served in the army, to a variety of practices and views concerning religion. Each nation, it was learned, had its own gods. But the Sun was everywhere. Faced with the overmighty Amun cult, a succession of pharaohs promoted Atenism. Thutmosis IV (r. 1400-13901400–1390) proclaimed Aten the protector of the army. Instead of waiting for death, Amenhotep III (r. 1390-13521390–1352), Akhenaten's father, impatiently proclaimed himself a god while he was still alive. The powers of a universal god transcended national boundaries, just as pharaoh's authority now stretched across nations. "In the ancient East, monotheism was but imperialism in religion," wrote American Egyptologist James Breasted.<ref name=breasted>Breasted, James, "[http://history-worldgluedideas.orgcom/ikhnatonEncyclopedia-Britannica-Volume-12-Part-1-Hydrozoa-Jeremy/Ikhnaton.htm html Ikhnaton]", ''Encyclopedia Britannica'' (1929).</ref>
Akhenaten's reforms were also an attempt to return to the past. In the Old Kingdom, Re, the god of the noonday Sun, and Horus, a falcon god, were the dominant cults. They did not respond to the prayers of commoners, but only to the pharaoh, which was divine and his power absolute. Commoners had no future in the afterworld. They volunteered to build pyramids so that pharaoh could have an afterlife and continue to watch over them after he died. In the New Kingdom, religion was more democratic. The afterlife rites earlier practiced only by pharaohs became widespread. Egyptians developed relationships with the gods through a variety of cults and temples.