O. Zapletniuk, PhD in History
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/1728-2640.2018.136.1.05
FEATURES OF CHANGES OF AKHENATEN'S TITULARY
The article examines the royal titulary of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), the Egyptian Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, from the 1st to the 12th years of his reign and its reflection of the religious preference of the young king and his role in the new solar cult of Aten. The author illustrates the transformation of the king's official titles during the all stages of his religious reform and points out to the meaning of the new titulary's epithets of Amenhotep IV and queen Nefertiti. The author analyses the reasons of king's rejection of many popular traditional titles of Egyptian pharaoh. Much attention is given to the interpretation and explanation of the meanings of some king's titles, that demonstrated the political and religious course of Amenhotep IV. The author comes to the conclusion that Amenhotep IV carried out the first steps of his future reform during the first two years of his reign. Despite the fact that at the beginning of the reign the king's titulary continued to include traditional titles, Pharaoh used the epithets: "Unique for Ra", "Living in Truth", which emphasized his exceptional role in the cult of the solar disk. Amenhotep IV also rejected the titles that were related to the expansion of the borders of the Egyptian state. Then Amenhotep IV changed his own name in favor of the god Aten, and it was an official announcement of the king's support of the new solar cult of Aten in opposition to the traditional cult of Amun. The transformation of the pharaoh's title usually reflected political and religious reality at every stage of the development of the Egyptian state. The new Amenhotep IV's titulary was aimed to demonstrate the reduction of the role of the king as a historical player in the favor of the king as a historical god.
Keywords: Egypt, Akhenaten, religious reform, king's titulary, the solar cult.
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