7.7: Amarna

 

Amarna Period

This period, characterized by monotheism and a radically different artistic style, occurred during the New Kingdom, but it is so distinctive it has its own name: the Amarna Period. This name comes from present-day Tell el-Amarna, where Akhenaten established his new capital city, Akhetaten. The Amarna Period represents a dramatic departure: from many gods to just one (the creator Aten, "sun disk"), and from a style that had been remarkably consistent for millennia to a dramatically unique one.

The distinctiveness of this period's style is immediately visible in the iconic statuary portrait of Akhenaten, one of several created for the Temple of Aten at Karnak. Unlike the rigid proportions and idealized features that had characterized other Egyptian rulers, like Menkaure, for thousands of years, Akhenaten is portrayed with a long, oval face; full and well-defined lips; and, perhaps most notably, a softly curving belly and hips. One theory proposed for this androgyny (combination of female and male characteristics) in Akhenaten's representation is that it reflects the sexlessness of Aten. What is certain is that this dramatically different style was short-lived, ending with Akhenaten's death in 1336 BCE.

Akhenaton, Nefertiti, and Three Daughters

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): House Altar depicting Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Three of their Daughters, New Kingdom, Amarna period, 18th dynasty, c. 1350 BCE. Limestone. Agyptisches Museum/Neues Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. (Photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

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Model Bust of Nefertiti

by Dr. Naraelle Hohensee

Figure \(\PageIndex{8}\): Thutmose, Model Bust of Queen Nefertiti, New Kingdom, Amarna period, 18th dynasty, c. 1340 BCE. Limestone and plaster, 19 in. (41 cm.). Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection/Neues Museum, Berlin. (Photo via Smarthistory)

Backstory, by Dr. Naraelle Hohensee

In 2009, the refurbished Neues Museum in Berlin celebrated its reopening, with the bust of Nefertiti prominently displayed as one of its main attractions. The celebration coincided with one of the Egyptian government’s repeated pleas for the official return of the bust to Egypt. The museum has staunchly refused to give up the sculpture, asserting that the bust was acquired legally by the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt in 1912. Borchardt had excavated it along with several other objects from the studio of the ancient Egyptian sculptor Thutmose, and had brought his finds to Germany as part of an agreement with the Egyptian Antiquities Service. While there is no proof that Borchardt’s dealings were explicitly illegal, as early as 1925, the Egyptian government began to take issue with Germany’s possession of valuable antiquities. They began imposing sanctions, and the bust has been the source of tension between the two nations ever since.

This controversy relates to a general growing public awareness about the provenance—and politics—of antiquities held in European and American museums. In 2016, Nora al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles, two artists from Germany, made a bold statement about these issues by staging an event they called “NefertitiHack.” They secretly mapped the sculpture using a consumer-grade 3-D scanning device, and then released the data openly under a Creative Commons license. The artists’ intention was “to inspire a critical reassessment of today’s conditions and to overcome the colonial notion of possession in Germany,” according to their website.

Many groups have advocated for using digitally-produced replicas either as stand-ins for objects that are returned to their places of origin, or vice versa—as ways of offering highly accurate replicas in place of the originals. The sharing of data between institutions and groups who lay claim to objects has also been suggested as a way to ease tensions over restitution. Nelles and al-Badri’s project is a critical statement about the growing questions around repatriation and public access to objects via 3-D models and other data, as the Neues Museum does not allow photography or publicly share its own 3-D model of the bust.

Nora al-Badri, one of the artists behind NefertitiHack, stated:

“The head of Nefertiti represents all the other millions of stolen and looted artifacts all over the world currently happening, for example, in Syria, Iraq, and in Egypt…Archaeological artifacts as a cultural memory originate for the most part from the Global South; however, a vast number of important objects can be found in Western museums and private collections. We should face the fact that the colonial structures continue to exist today and still produce their inherent symbolic struggles.”

Over a century after it was excavated, the bust of Nefertiti remains a flashpoint for institutions and the public, driving us to consider the ways in which objects and their data are acquired, displayed, and shared.

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Articles in this section:

• Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris, "House Altar depicting Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Three of their Daughters," in Smarthistory, December 6, 2015 (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Portrait Head of Queen Tiye," in Smarthistory, December 9, 2015 (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris, "Thutmose, Model Bust of Queen Nefertiti," in Smarthistory, December 6, 2015 (CC BY-NC-SA)