Special Exhibition Preview: Amarna: Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun

Though no one could match Stan Parchin's knowledge and keen interest, I am nonetheless awfully excited about the upcoming Amarna: Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun exhibition at The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. In the first semester of any Art History 101 survey course, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, also known as Amenophis IV, stands out as one of (if not the) initial, significant humans you learn by name. He changed his to Akhenaten (‘Beneficial to the Aten’) shortly after his accession, heavy-handedly shifted worship to Aten (the disc-shaped manifestation of the traditional sun-god Re) and - most importantly for our purposes - set Ancient Egyptian art on its ear. Everything shifted from the idealized to the realistic during the Amarna period under Akhenaten's reign.

Of course, after Akhenaten and his immediate successor, Smenkhkare (r. ca. 1335–ca. 1332 BC) were out of the scene, every effort was made to obliterate all traces of this artistic freedom (not to mention all traces of Akhenaten, himself). Even Akhenaten's son by a minor wife, the still-famous Pharaoh Tutankhamun, put as much distance as he could between himself and Dear Old Dad when he ascended the throne. Pity. The Amarna Style was a delightful, if brief, artistic interlude that had just gotten all of the design kinks ironed out when Tut came into power. Luckily for all of us, much of it will be recreated in Amarna: Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun. Give Stan's review a read and then run, don't walk, if you have the opportunity to view this gem of an exhibition after it opens in Philadelphia next month.

Image credit:

Colossal Statue of Pharaoh
Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten)
Egyptian, New Kingdom, Dynasty 18,
Amarna Period (ca. 1353-1336 B.C.)
Sandstone
Egyptian Museum, Cairo
Photo credit: Jon Bodsworth