William Durand-Poole

Conspicuous in his absence is Akhenaten.

And we see it far closer to his time with his son,

Tutankhamun, as we know him, originally had the name Tutankhaten and changed his name

to Tutankhamun to take in that old faith again.

And very famously in Karnak Temple, Tutankhamun, this young king, under the tutelage of the old priests of Amun, I dare say, establishes a huge edict, basically saying, okay, back to normal.

Let's open the temples again.

Let's reboot them.

Because Egypt...

He says, you know, this last 10 years have been chaos when Egypt was without its gods.

So we have to restore the order through getting the old gods back again.

Freud needs a good lie down, I think, to really think that through.

No, there's nothing there.

But it was very popular in 1900s, Velikovsky in the 50s, claiming that Moses the monotheist, Akhenaten the monotheist, and linking the story of the Exodus to this period.

It was, you know, kind of natural thing to do.

There's nothing there.

And all this kind of esoteric stuff was going on, you know.

There's a brilliant book that was written early in the 2000s by the late Dominic Monserrat, a colleague of mine, looking at the traditions of Akhenaten since his death, which is a great read.

I recommend for anybody.

He's been portrayed in film.

There's a 1953 movie called The Egyptian, which stars Edmund Purdom and Jean Tierney.