Thanks for this article and pics- I have always had an interest in things Akhenaten (sp?). Wasn’t he Tuts father and Tut was supposed to be Tutankahten but when Akenahten died “they” changed the religion back to the way it was and renamed him Tutankamen?
There are some common overstatements and misconceptions about Akhenaten, in the main, the fact is, he wasn’t a monotheist (he worshipped the actual solar disk, making him a monalater, that is, he worshipped a single idol), he lived centuries after Moses, and even Aten was merely one of the Egyptian pantheon and dated back to the Old Kingdom times. The New Kingdom pharaohs seemed to take some delight in uncovering and trying to understand Old Kingdom practices. Akhenaten’s father, Amenhotep III, seems to have contributed to a revival of fortunes for Aten, and his predecessor and father Thutmose IV may have been the real source of the revival; IV was the usurper who, as a young prince out of the fast track and a long shot to become pharaoh, fell asleep in the shadow of the Great Sphinx and dreamed that the statue spoke to him, telling him he would make IV pharaoh if he’d clean the sand from around his body. IV not only kept his part of the deal, he erected the Dream Stele, which tells this story and remains between the paws of the Sphinx.
For much more about the 18th dynasty (particularly the House of Amarna) on FR alone, just check out the keywords.