New Kingdom Egypt · About 1353-1336 BC

Akhenaten and Amarna: a religious revolution

A pharaoh turned his back on the old gods, worshipped the sun disk and built a new capital in the desert. Students explore Akhenaten's city at Amarna, read the letters of the kings who wrote to him, and ask why his revolution failed.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
45 minutes
Ages
12–15
On the map
3 steps, 1346 BC to 1350 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

A pharaoh turned his back on the old gods, worshipped the sun disk and built a new capital in the desert. Students explore Akhenaten's city at Amarna, read the letters of the kings who wrote to him, and ask why his revolution failed.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Describe the religious changes Akhenaten made and how Egyptians reacted.
  • Locate Amarna, Thebes and Memphis and explain the choice of a new capital.
  • Use the Amarna letters to describe Egypt's place among the great powers.
2

Explore the map

12 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

1346 BC

A city on empty land

Open the map in 1346 BC and zoom in on the east bank of the Nile, about halfway between Memphis and Thebes. Akhenaten built his capital, Akhetaten, here on land no one had used. Why choose a fresh place?

Open this view on the map
b

1346 BC

Between the old capitals

Zoom out and turn on Cities. Find Thebes and Memphis. Why might a king who turned against the god Amun leave Thebes, the city of Amun?

Open this view on the map
c

1350 BC

Letters from abroad

Zoom out to the whole Near East. Clay letters found at Amarna came from kings in Babylon, Mitanni, Assyria and the Hittite land, and from rulers of Canaanite cities. Find where these writers lived.

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

14 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Akhenaten put one god, the Aten, above all others. Why might that anger priests and ordinary Egyptians?
  2. Art changed under Akhenaten: the king was shown playing with his daughters. What message might that send?
  3. The Amarna letters were written in Akkadian cuneiform, not in Egyptian. Why use a foreign language for diplomacy?
  4. After his death his city was abandoned and his name left out of later king lists. Why would later rulers try to forget him?
  5. Was Akhenaten a religious visionary or a ruler who neglected his empire? What evidence would you need to decide?
4

Game round

9 min

Play one round of Rule History as Ramesses II, who ruled about 60 years after Akhenaten and whose family left him out of the official lists of kings. Discuss: why did Ramesses want to look like a traditional pharaoh, and what did he gain from the old gods?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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