Eric Cline

I mean, everybody's got the gods.

In fact, that seems to be one of the continuities that we've got through the Bronze Age collapse is the religion keeps going.

But every so often you get people coming in and upending things like our friend Akhenaten.

No, I think everybody has their own gods.

I wouldn't mix and match the Canaanite gods with the Egyptian gods.

But for the Canaanites, for example, you've got Baal and you've got El.

And these then later make their way into Israelite religion.

And Israel.

Exactly.

El is in the word Israel.

Right.

So we've got, you know, the Canaanites are going to leave their legacy for sure.

But the Egyptians, I would put them separate, but there are lots of gods and goddesses.

And in fact, I mean, you've got Aten, as you're talking about, as the disk of the sun, but you've got Ra as the actual sun and so on.

But it also looks like

All of the changes begin in this period, that is with Amenhotep III, the father.

There are some indications that the worship of Aten actually began with him and that Akhenaten may have just picked up on this, but you'll explore that in future episodes.

There may be some indications.

Some scholars would argue that exactly.

But I also, I would say that a lot of what we see in Akhenaten's reign was begun by his father.