William Durand-Poole

You know, there's been a group of people, you know, worshipping an image of Mary, you know, or at least venerating Mary for centuries.

And then somebody from the same village says, I'm only doing my job and knocks her head off, you know.

How did Akhenaten bring the people with him?

Did he ever bring the people with him?

That's the big question.

And I think the way in which, at his death, the whole revolution was reversed so quickly suggests to me he wasn't successful.

All their old prayers that they knew were Amun-related or Isis worship.

We found in Amarna, in private households...

little votive plaques showing Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and the disk, which locals were supposed to worship in their homes.

And as opposed to the old hippopotamus goddess that they used to worship, you know?

But you can't tell me...

That, okay, they paid lip service and put up these little plaques.

But I'm sure the lady of the house, when she was pregnant and going through childbirth, still went back in her mind to the hippopotamus goddess, Tawaret.

And we found images of the different gods.

We have indeed.

Exactly.

So there's this tension there.

It is merely the sun, that's all.

And Egypt had been following a solar cult since the Pyramid Age, okay?

So Ra is a sun god.