Akhenaten changed thousands of years of art in Egypt.
Gone were the images of Amun and the other gods of Egypt, now replaced by Aten, the solar disc.
When Akhenaten built his monuments with images of the Pharaoh, he moved away from the traditions of a strong, handsome muscular Pharaoh. Images of Pharaohs with idealized bodies were gone.
The Pharaoh was shown as misshapen as was his wife Nefertiti. It became fashionable to show images of the entire royal family with elongated heads, faces, fingers, toes, wide hips, This gave the artists of Amarna new freedom to show scenes of the real life of the Pharaoh, something that had never been done before.
The temple was covered with scenes of the Aten, the sun disc with its rays shining down, ending in hands holding ankhs, the hieroglyph for life.
The people wondered why the images of the other Gods where not represented.
Akhenaten was the first Pharaoh to have images and paintings
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