Akhenaten

Hello. My name is Akhenaten, and I was a pharaoh who lived a very long time ago in ancient Egypt. When I was born around the year 1369 BCE, my name was Amenhotep IV. I grew up in a big, sunny land where my people believed in many, many gods for everything, from the sky to the river. But as I grew older, I started to have a very different idea about the world and how it worked. I thought maybe there was something else we should be thankful for.

I came to believe in one powerful god who was the source of all life. This god was called the Aten, and it was the light and the warmth that comes from the sun itself. This was a huge change for my people, who were used to praying to many gods. To show everyone how much I believed in this new way, around my fifth year as pharaoh, in 1348 BCE, I changed my name. I was no longer Amenhotep. I became Akhenaten, which means 'Effective for the Aten'. My new name was a promise to honor the sun's light above all else.

To celebrate the Aten, I decided we needed a brand new capital city. I built a beautiful city called Akhetaten, which means 'Horizon of the Aten'. I moved there with my wife, the lovely Queen Nefertiti, and our children. I wanted everything in our new city to be different, even our art. Before, statues of pharaohs always looked very serious and still. But I wanted our art to show real life. I asked the artists to create pictures and statues of our family laughing, playing, and hugging. It showed the world that even a pharaoh's family could be full of love and happiness.

I ruled as pharaoh for about 17 years. My ideas about one god were so new that many people in Egypt were not ready for them. After my time as pharaoh ended, my son, Tutankhamun, became the new ruler and he brought back all the old gods. For a long, long time, my story and my city were forgotten and hidden by the desert sand. But many years later, people found the ruins of Akhetaten and discovered my story. Today, I am remembered as the pharaoh who dared to think differently and share a new idea with the world.