The Heresy of Akhenaten: The Creation and Doctrine of the First Monotheism
             The history of the Pharaohs of Egypt has been but an endless line of king lists with few pharaohs of note and even fewer with any individual personality, as far as we can glean from the texts, and with few major societal changes. Akhenaten, of the XVIII Dynasty, stands out as one of the rare pharaohs in Egyptian history whose glaring uniqueness both shocks and intrigues scholars at the same time. He ruled for seventeen years from 1375 BC to 1358 BC (though Egyptological dating is far from an exact science), but in this short span he single handedly turned Egyptian Religion and Art on its head. In his History of Egypt, Henry Breasted said of the pharaoh, "He was the first individual in human history," and as with all individuals there has been endless speculation into his nature and character. Theories abound in respect to his daily life: portrayals as that of a loving, and affectionate father to a father who may have been too affectionate; there are even theories that he !
             had a more than "fraternal" relationship with his successor Smenkhare . All theories aside, the name of Akhenaten evokes images of a sun-drenched paradise, filled with a love of nature and a place where death lasted only as long as the night. Unlike most New Kingdom pharaohs, little is left of the written accounts of his reign. His successors made sure that as much evidence of his existence was wiped from the historical accounts as was possible. Inscriptions were hacked out of walls, his name was defaced wherever it was found, and his image as well as his symbol the Disk of Aten was destroyed. Which begs the question: why? What was his great crime that warranted his, as well as his successors, near total erasure from history?
             It is as simple as this: he was the founder of the world's first known monotheistic religion . Within the span of half a dec...