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The argument is “WhY dOesS AkHenAtOn lOok DiffreN to OhEr PhaRaOhs? ALIEMS????”

Here’s the answer and its a wild fucking ride, lemme tell you.

Akhenaton was a fucking revolutionary Pharaoh and almost single handedly tried to rewrite ALL of ancient Egypt’s religion during his rule. He;

1: Moved Egypt’s Capital to a new city further down the Nile called Akhenaton after himself which is entirely based on worshiping the singular god, Aten. 2: Established a new religion that saw a singular god called “Aten” rather than an entire pantheon and esentially said “Yeah all those other gods we’ve been worshiping for literally thousands of years? Yeah just throw those out. They’re not canon now” 3: Re-worked how ancient Egyptian art was drawn (and this is the big one) where he was essentially bored with the “Eyptian style” of art and instead urged all HIS depictions in art capture his appearance more accurately to real life. His frescos also, unlike any other pharoah, show him in domestic scenes, spending time with his wife and children in very mundane, every day situations

(an image of Akhenaton with his wife playing with their young children. Akhenaton is shown kissing one of his daughters in fatherly affection)

Akhenaton was not traditionally handsome (probably thanks to hundreds of years of inbreeding thanks to how Ancient Egyptian royalty worked) and did not want to be depicted in a way that wasn’t true to himself. So his image is always shown as gangly with long limbs, slightly over-weight with a belly, elongated features and pronounced lips.

So….. this kind of really REALLY fucking pissed off literally every high ranking priest in all of Egypt because they’re now, to put it plainly, out of a job. Akhenaton’s moving of the capital also severely crippled the religious structure, moving political power away from where most of the greatest temples were, and since the Pharoahs are meant to be living gods on Earth, what does it say when the gods of Earth don’t live in the same city any more?

Akhenaton dies from unknown reasons but most likely the same genetic disease that gave him his appearance (some have obviously suggested assassination but there is no proof of this that’s been found and it remains up for debate) and the priests and historians go about striking his name from history and destroying and defacing artwork depicting him and his new religion.

(whoops)

He is then excluded from the king lists and is referred by later Dynasties as “The Enemy” or “That Criminal” in archival records. When Akhenaton’s mummy was located his sarcophagus and funerary mask were both deliberately destroyed.

You may have heard of his wife, btw. Nefertiti.

You ever wonder why she’s called the most beauiful woman in history? It’s probably because she was one of the few Pharaoh women accurate sculpted to relfect what she really looked like, versus a stock style.

also fun fact, this most famous image of her is an incomplete wooden bust found in the ruins of a sculptors’ workshop, presumeably because she was killed before he could finish it and he was like “aw shit… NOW what do I do with this?”

Now the problem is, the priests can’t just appoint a brand new Pharaoh, because pharoahs are descended from the gods themselves and their blood can’t be mixed with that of mere mortals (which is why Egyptian pharaohs marry their mothers and sisters. To keep their godly blood “pure”). So, the hastily appoint Akhenaton’s son who is 9 years old as the new pharaoh (and of course the child will have advisors to help him rule until he is an adult… of course.)

Problem. Akhenaton’s son’s name is Tutankhaten. “Living Image of Aten” and that just won’t do. So 2 years into his reign (aged 11) his name is changed to  Tutankhamun, “Living image of Amun”after the sun god Amun or Amun-Ra. The city of Akhenaton is abandoned and falls into ruin.

All is well and Tutankhamun’s kingdom is ruled by his advisors… until he’s about 18 or 19. Whoops! Now he’s an adult and probably wants to start actually doing his job as the ruler of Egypt.

Oh wait no nevermind. he conveniently died. We’re not sure how exactly because, oh… uhm… it seems there are no surviving records of King Tut’s final days! Whoops!

Ok that’s an over simplification. In truth, thanks to many… many… many…. MANY scans and autopsies, we now now Tut broke his knee recently before he died, had a very aggressive strain of malaria which led to a bone disease and also, due to being inbred as FUCK because of how Pharaohs work, also suffered from mild kyphoscoliosis (a curved spine), pes planus (flat feet), hypophalangism of the right foot (missing bone), bone necrosis of the second and third metatarsal bones of the left foot, and a club foot that was so bad he could not stand unless aided by walking sticks. However the exact cause of death is still unknown but it seems direct assassination is unlikely.

But anyway.

So King Tut dies as does the two stillborn children of his and Akhenaton’s family line reaches an end. It did not end well for Tut’s wife either as she disappears from history after a war which left Egypt defeated and her new husband, Ay the new Pharaoh, with a sudden second wife. After Ay’s death a new Pharaoh comes into power by usurping the throne and has a complete and utter “Stricken from history” campaign against all of Tutankhamun’s family, including father, mother, daughters, wife, half sisters, and all other family members.

King Tut is buried in an unusually small tomb most likely due to his sudden death, that became forgotten and buried.

Fast forward 3,245 years to 1915 and his tomb is discovered by Archaeologists. The tomb is one of the most intact and untouched tombs EVER discovered in the history of all Agyptian Pharoahs, and almost single-handedly caused an absolute obsession with Ancient Egyptian culture and kickstarted what we now call “Egyptology”. A fascination which has never truly died even in modern times today.

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