Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV)
1353-1336 BCE · Ancient Near East · Prominent
Akhenaten was an Egyptian pharaoh, born Amenhotep IV, who around 1350 BC closed the temples of Amun, had the old gods' names chiselled out, and ordered worship of the sun-disc Aten alone as sole creator. He moved his court to a new city in the desert at Amarna, whose artists worked in a stretched, lifelike style. Scholars argue over whether to call it the first monotheism or a king's private cult.
Signature
The position Akhenaten is most identified with in the Profiler:
- The Divine
- leans Describable
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
Positions on the 3 axes the sources answer
- The Divine
- leans Describable (25 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Allegiance
- leans Local (25 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
17 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Akhenaten refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Autocracy / Clerical Theocracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Knowledge
- Grounded in God
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Divine Command
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Divine Providence
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Authority
- Divine Revelation
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Sacred Speech
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Primary Bond
- Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?