ShortHand: Akhenaten - The Heretical Forgotten Pharaoh

**Hannah Maguire** (0:30)
A very fun, old and timey, it's not that fun. It's fun for me, I had fun writing it. Old and timey episode of Shorthand. Everyone ready?
Ancient Egypt, a remarkable civilization, which emerged around 3,150 BC, that is bonkers on the shores of the River Nile in Northeastern Africa.

**Suruthi Bala** (0:55)
Did you know that Ancient Egypt went on for so long that archaeologist was a career in Ancient Egypt?

**Hannah Maguire** (1:01)
I've got it in the story.

**Suruthi Bala** (1:02)
Have you? You don't need TikTok, you can do it yourself.

**Hannah Maguire** (1:06)
It's true.
The Ancient Egyptians gave us pyramids, mummies, and sparked an enduring fascination in history for modern children all over the world. We all read in awe about how they pulled the brains of their dead out through their nose, and buried all the deceased organs in jars in their giant golden tombs. And if you're anything like me, you also wrote, casted, directed, and starred in your own classroom play about Cleopatra.

**Suruthi Bala** (1:35)
I wore my water-themed leggings, especially for you. I wish I'd brought a silk scarf to wave, so I could be the Nile to your Cleopatra.

**Hannah Maguire** (1:43)
Just the vision, the vision of a year five Saruti.
And it's true, who can deny all of our obsessions, at some point at least, but I cannot believe that we all did not have a minor obsession with dinosaurs, the Tudors and the ancient Egyptians. Tutankhamun and Cleopatra probably top of the list.

**Suruthi Bala** (2:03)
I always think it's quite amusing that Tutankhamun was actually an incredibly minor part of the story. We just happened to have stumbled across his grave, so we all give a shit. I'd be raging if I was a major pharaoh that they hadn't found.

**Hannah Maguire** (2:13)
Definitely, definitely, because arguably, Cleopatra and Tutankhamun are the most famous pharaohs. Cleopatra, yeah, fair do's. She did a lot. Last pharaoh, fair, fair play. Tutankhamun didn't really do very much at all. He was very busy being a quite sickly, inbred boy king. But the same cannot be said for his father, the main character of our story today.
Akhenaten may not be very well remembered like his son is, but to be honest, a lot more people probably know his name now, 3,500 years later, and definitely will do by the end of this episode, you'll even be able to say it, I promise. More people know his name than did just 50 years after his own death, when Ramses the Great took over. And that's because after Akhenaten's death, every preceding pharaoh, including his own son Tutankhamun, did their best to wipe his name from history.
Akhenaten, the heretic king, was maybe the most controversial pharaoh as far as the ancient Egyptians were concerned. And it wasn't even because he married his own daughters. That was the least of it. Want to know more? Of course you do. This is the shorthand.

**Suruthi Bala** (3:30)
Let's start somewhere near the beginning with his father, Amenhotep III, or Amenhotep the Magnificent, the ninth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty. If you had to choose, Saruti, the... What would be your signify? Is that the right word? Honorific?

**Hannah Maguire** (3:51)
Oh, yes. The... Something with an S, just for the flow. Saruti the...
The word sneaky keeps coming to mind. I was going to say sneaky as well.

**Suruthi Bala** (4:02)
You're not actually that sneaky, though.

**Hannah Maguire** (4:04)
Saruti the...

**Suruthi Bala** (4:06)
Sensational.

**Hannah Maguire** (4:07)
Sensational. There we go. What about Hanna? Hanna the...

**Suruthi Bala** (4:10)
Gripplingly anxious.

**Hannah Maguire** (4:12)
Honorable, but then it's not got the H. It's not got the H. Hard H.

**Suruthi Bala** (4:15)
H is difficult.

**Hannah Maguire** (4:16)
We'll come back to it. I'm going to have a think. Hanna the...

**Suruthi Bala** (4:20)
Nope. No good words begin with H.
Under Aminatep the Magnificent's rule, from 1388 to 1351 BC, things were going great. He was a savvy diplomat, and he built strong alliances with neighboring kingdoms, making it a peaceful and prosperous period for Egypt. It is also seen as the pinnacle of ancient Egyptian civilization, both in terms of political power and cultural achievement. Aminatep III was even the first pharaoh to issue royal news bulletins about his marriages, hunting trips and building projects, with the information being inscribed on large stone scarab seals and sent out across the empire. So he had a mailing list. Interesting.
And Aminatep III also had a lot of children because he had lots of wives, but most crucially, a son called Thatmos. Thatmos was the result of Aminatep III's main squeeze, his great royal wife, Queen Ty.