Cairo In-Person Lecture: Atenism from Sinai to Sudan

Doors Open at 5:30 PM and close at 6:00 PM (or slightly before as the lecture hall reaches full capacity)

Lecture Information

The Amarna Period of ancient Egypt is marked by numerous innovations in art, religion, and government. Akhenaten implemented a new artistic decorum and founded a new capital, Akhet-Aten (present-day Tell el-Amarna), replacing the former administrative capital, Memphis, and the former religious capital, Thebes. Moreover, he initiated a widespread program of building temples dedicated to the Aten primarily in Thebes and Amarna, but also at several other sites from Tjaru at the Sinai border to Gebel Barkal in Nubia.

A massive body of evidence suggests or confirms that Aten temples or chapels existed in several sites outside Thebes and Amarna, including talatat, tombs and other architectural inscriptions, stelae, jewelry, and seal impressions. Many of the sites at which Aten temples or chapels were or may have been constructed were dedicated to the cults of major primeval gods, such as Re in Heliopolis, Ptah in Memphis, Min in Akhmim, and Osiris in Abydos. This research proposes these widespread temples and chapels formed a network across Egypt and Sudan, as well as proposes that Atenism incorporated the cults of other major primeval gods.

Speaker Bio

Briana Jackson holds a PhD in Egyptian art and archaeology from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Currently she is a Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow at the American Research Center in Egypt, which includes both managing and content building for the Theban Mapping Project website, and also conducting her own research on Atenism and the Amarna Period. Apart from her research interests in the Amarna Period and international relations in the second millennium BCE, Briana also studies archaeogaming, specifically examining the representation of ancient Egypt in video games. Committed to public scholarship, Briana also has a YouTube channel where she posts videos on ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian objects and history, as well as educational playthroughs of video games set in ancient Egypt.