What Was the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten Famous for Art 101
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HISTORY OF MEDICINE
Akhenaten, a unique pharaoh
François Pieter Retief; Louise Cilliers
Akhenaten was a unique pharaoh in more than ways than one. He initiated a major socio-religious revolution that had vast consequences for his country, and possessed a strikingly abnormal physiognomy that was of note in his time and has interested historians up to the present era. In this written report, we attempt to identify the developmental disorder responsible for his eunuchoid appearance.
Akhenaten, the Pharaoh (Dynasty eighteen,1350 - 1334 BC, New Kingdom)i,2
Amenotep IV (Akhenaten) succeeded his father, Amenotep III, afterward a peculiarly prosperous and peaceful reign of about 40 years. He was hidden from public scrutiny for a good part of his father's reign, perhaps because of his curious advent. It is possible that he was co-regent with his father for a few years. Amenotep Iii had begun to find the polytheistic priesthood of Amun restrictive on his reign and initiated early on measures to adjourn them. His son was to extend this considerably. He began his movement towards the institution of a monotheistic faith centred on Aten, the sungod, by building him a temple outside the Amun temple complex at Karnak (Thebes). The sungod already formed an important component of the Amun godhead complex as Amen-Re or Re-Hanakhte. It was soon clear that the two cults could not survive together. Proving himself more of a philosopher and thinker than his forebears, Amenotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten (Servant of Aten) in his 5th or sixth regnal yr, and started closing the temples of Amun and prosecuting its priesthood. At the same time, he proceeded to move his upper-case letter from Thebes to halfway downward the Nile at Memphis, which he called Akhetaten (Horizon of Aten) - today called el-Amarna.
Akhetaten, constructed on a stretch of virgin soil, and nearly half dozen km x 4 km in size, was predominantly on the eastern Nile bank and gave the impression of a garden urban center with extensive palaces, temples for Aten, living quarters for the aristocracy, and ceremonial graves excavated into the cliffs to the eastward. Mod archaeology reveals evidence of hasty but shoddy workmanship. Artists were encouraged to emulate what they saw, rather than reproducing homo stereotypes typical of the past. The pharaoh's curious physique was represented in various statues and reliefs (Fig. 1); information technology even became stylish to emulate the pharaoh's elongated limbs in statues of other members of the royal family. The most famous sculpture of his queen, Nefertiti, shows her with an elongated neck (Fig. ii). The realistic art of the era became known as 'Amarna fine art' (after the metropolis). Akhenaten also encouraged literature, and it is thought that he was the author of the boggling Hymn to the Aten - in which some authorities see a resemblance to Psalm 104 from the Bible. The 'Amarna alphabetic character' shows show of extensive correspondence with foreign kings in the Center East. State administration and strange affairs were largely left to viziers such as Ay and Horemheb, while the king tended to the expansion of his religion and social systems. Show is that the new Aten organized religion was accustomed by the elite of the time, but that it was probably not widely practised past the common people.
Besides his principal wife, Nefertiti (the daughter of his vizier, Ay), Akhenaten had iv other wives (2 were daughters of Nefertiti), at least half dozen daughters and probably 1 son, Tuthankamen. Nefertiti died (or was disposed of) in his 12th regnal yr, when he married her daughter, Merytaten. On his expiry (of unknown cause) in his 16th regnal year, he was probably cached in his prepared tomb at Akhetaten, merely his mummy was subsequently removed and perhaps re-interred in the Valley of the Kings in Thebes. The mysterious tomb 55 is often quoted as a possible concluding resting place, but his mummy has never been found. Subsequent pharaohs promptly restored the religion of Amun, and moved the capital back to Thebes.
Akhenaten'due south curious physiognomy
Judging from his statues and reliefs, Akhenaten had a eunuchoid body structure: narrow breast with gynaecomastia, wide hips with prominent fatty deposits, elongated spindly limbs and elongated neck and skull (Fig. 1).one,2 The physiognomy is typical of eunuchs castrated early in life, and is acquired past a deficiency of androsterone (testosterone), normally produced predominantly in the testes. The pocket-size amount of testosterone produced in the adrenal glands is not sufficient to foreclose the feminine growth pattern in adolescence. Normally, 2 gonadotrophic hormones (GTH) produced by the hypothalamus and inductive pituitary gland (luteinising hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH)) stimulate the testes to produce testosterone and spermatozoa (sperm cells) respectively. For sperm prison cell production, an amount of testosterone is also essential, but androgen of adrenal origin will suffice for this.3,4
Differential diagnoses
A diversity of diagnoses have been suggested to explain Akhenaten's physiognomy:
• There is no show that Akhenaten was a true eunuch every bit a result of early castration or subversive testicular affliction in infancy. As a eunuch, he would take been infertile. • Fröhlich'due south syndrome was one of the earliest suggestions.1,v This is caused by a tumour or cyst of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis with hypogonadism owing to deficient product of GTH to stimulate the testes. Hypothalamic dysfunction also results in matted hunger metabolism and resultant obesity. The feminine figure would fit Akhenaten's concrete peculiarities although he was not fat. However, patients with Fröhlich's syndrome are infertile (Akhenaten had at to the lowest degree 6 children) and mental retardation is the rule.6 The pharaoh was not retarded.1 There is growing doubt whether this syndrome warrants an independent identity. • Marfan'due south syndrome was suggested by Burridgeseven as a possible diagnosis. Underlying this inherited disease is a disorder of the fibrillin gene which results in lacking fibrin and collagen production. The patients characteristically have long, thin extremities, arachnoidactyli, dolicocephaly, with a narrow confront and pectus excavatum (pigeon chest). Joints are remarkably lax ('double jointed'), and associated abnormalities such equally subluxation of the ocular lens with retinal detachment, femoral hernias and cystic lung disease are mutual. They are likewise prone to dilatation of the proximal aorta with aortic regurgitation, dissecting aortic aneurysms, mitral incompetence and early heart failure. Although the elongated face and extremities would fit Akhenaten's physiognomy, Marfan's syndrome is not associated with the pharaoh'south eunuchoid features.viii • Klinefelter'due south syndrome is mentioned by various authors.9 In this chromosomal aberration (nearly typically with an XXY, 47 chromosome), whose incidence is approximately i in 500 newborns, the basic defect is hyalinisation of the testicular seminal tubules and defective Leydig cells, resulting in full azoospermia, testosterone deficiency and consequent eunuchoid features: alpine, wide hips, female escutchion, gynaecomastia, and small testes.10 Mental retardation is common. Although Akhenaten'southward build would appropriately resemble Klinefelter's syndrome, the latter patients are infertile by definition, unlike the pharaoh. • Kallmann's syndrome is a disorder inherited past autosomal recessive X-linked propagation, characterised by deficient synthesis of both hypothalamic-pituitary gonadotrophic hormones (FSH and LH) and is associated with anosmia/hyposmia owing to aphasia of the olfactory bulb. The incidence is approximately 1 in fifty 000 births. The condition therefore presents with lifelong hypogonadism in the male and female person. The male shows a pronounced feminine build and full infertility - the kickoff characteristic plumbing equipment in with the 'Akhenaten syndrome', but not the infertility. Kallmann's syndrome may also include colour blindness and eventual optic cloudburst, nervus deafness, cleft palate, renal abnormalities, crypto-orchidism and neurological abnormalities with mirror movement.11 • Fertile eunuch syndrome is characterised by selective deficiency of LH synthesis in the hypothalamic-pituitary centrality, while FSH is usually produced. The result is effective sperm production (assisted by adrenal testosterone), but lack of testicular testosterone necessary to avoid feminine characteristics developing during boyhood. The patient therefore appears eunochoid but is indeed fertile - adrenal testosterone also facilitating sexual activity. This condition may occur in association with Kallmann's syndrome, or exist caused by supracellar or intracellar tumours.12 Akhenaten showed no other show of a lifelong intracerebral tumour.
Discussion
We propose that Akhenaten's curious body build - typical of eunuchoidism just associated with fertility - was due to the rare condition of 'fertile eunuch syndrome' - which might in hereafter even be called Akhenaten syndrome. There can be piddling doubtfulness that the pharaoh led an agile sexual practice life with at least 5 wives and, although some of his many children might mayhap have had extra-connubial parentage, it is nearly unlikely that all of them did. If Akhenaten's disorder was indeed partly Kallmann's syndrome (as nosotros suggest), he about certainly also lacked a sense of smell and, as he anile, perchance developed loss of hearing, blindness and odd neurological defects. He probably did not have a cleft palate.
Finding Akhenaten's mummy would be the 'cherry on top' in finally identifying the heretic pharaoh's metabolic defect, but it has and so far eluded discovery.
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François Retief was Founding Dean of the Medical Faculty of the University of the Costless State; Rector of Medunsa; Director-General of National Health Services; and Rector of the University of the Complimentary Land. He is now an Honorary Enquiry Fellow, researching diseases of antiquity.
Louise Cilliers has taught at UNISA, the Academy of Natal and Rand Afrikaans University, and was Professor and Head of the Department of Classical Languages at the University of the Free State. She is as well an Honorary Research Fellow at UOFS.
Respective author: Fifty Cilliers (cilliers@ufs.ac.za)
Source: http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0256-95742011000900013
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