Aidan Dodson

People like Ptah and all the other great gods, their names aren't erased.

The exception is Amun, the previous king of the gods.

And my view is the reason why he's got it in for Amun is because Amun's title is king of the gods, which of course is almost blasphemy,

if he believes that the Aten is the supreme god.

The date he starts attacking Amun is another matter for debate.

I'm very much of the view that it's very much towards the end of his reign, because there are mentions of Amun around about year 12.

I think it's a bit of both.

And I think that he may be deciding that the person to blame for his misfortunes, the death of his mother, his daughters, may be Amun.

So I think, I'm of the opinion that the attack on Amun, which basically destroys every extant image of the god, also erases every mention of his name on inscriptions, that should be dated to the last couple of years and is possibly part of a mental collapse of

of Akhenaten in the face of these various calamities.

I think it probably takes a decade or so to get to that level.

Because, of course, immediately after his death, the power is in the hands of his widow, Nefertiti, now a female pharaoh, and also his son, Tutankhamun.

And what seems to happen is that the dismantling of the idea of the Aten being the soul god...

happens very, very rapidly within the first three years after his death.

But actually, any attacks on Akhenaten himself in the sense of erasure of figures and so on is probably after Tutankhamun is safely in his tomb, if not even slightly beyond that.

Okay.

Now, I think we're into something which could be about three podcasts worth.

Oh, okay.

I better expand on that.

This tomb, KV55, what it originally was, was the evacuation team from Amarna.