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51-435: The city of Akhetaten was built rather hastily and was constructed mostly of mud-brick. Mud-bricks were made by drying in the sun and they measured 33–37 cm x 15–16 cm x 9–10 cm, although bricks for temple enclosure walls were slightly larger, at 38 cm x 16 cm x 16 cm. During construction, bricks were laid down with a small amount of mortar between the rows and no mortar between adjacent bricks. There

102-408: A cornice , joined by a less elevated section enclosing the entrance between them. The gate was generally about half the height of the towers. Contemporary paintings of pylons show them with long poles flying banners. In ancient Egyptian religion , the pylon mirrored the hieroglyph akhet 'horizon', which was a depiction of two hills "between which the sun rose and set". Consequently, it played

153-716: A causeway that went through two large colonnades with colossal statues of Akhenaten on either side wearing the Red Crown and the White Crown . The causeway continued into a final court that had a high altar surrounded by offering tables. This main altar was probably intended just for the Royal Family, especially after the Gem-Aten was built and put into regular use. Behind the Sanctuary there were other rooms including

204-511: A critical role in the symbolic architecture of a building associated with the place of re-creation and rebirth. Pylons were often decorated with scenes emphasizing a king's authority since it was the public face of a building. On the first pylon of the temple of Isis at Philae , the pharaoh is shown slaying his enemies while Isis, Horus and Hathor look on. Other examples of pylons can be seen in Karnak , Luxor Temple and Edfu . Rituals to

255-616: A large room which housed the original shrine of the dedication ceremony, but these rooms were only accessible from outside the Sanctuary. Against the northeastern end of the enclosure wall was one final altar called the Hall of Foreign Tribute. This was a large set-in altar and was most likely where offerings from foreign lands were made. The cult of the Aten was celebrated daily and was very simple. Although there were other priests, Akhenaten acted as his own High Priest and special roles were given to

306-402: A plaster floor, string was used. The string was first dipped in black paint and stretched tightly and was allowed to touch the ground, leaving a mark. In some instances the string was even pushed into the plaster floor, leaving a shallow groove. A similar technique was used to divide up wall surfaces before they were decorated with relief. The actual construction of the temple was accomplished in

357-575: A road that ran through the city and parallel to the Nile River. Soon after the death of Akhenaten, Atenism was rejected as a religion and the city was destroyed. The temple was dismantled, covered in new sand, and paved over, but ironically this has preserved the site better than it might normally have been for archaeologists today. In 1890, Flinders Petrie, with permission from the Egyptian Antiquities Service, began excavating

408-504: A sense of what it looked like and how worship of the Aten must have played out for inhabitants of the city of Akhetaten. Pylon (architecture) A pylon is a monumental gate of an Egyptian temple (Egyptian: bxn.t in the Manuel de Codage transliteration ). The word comes from the Greek term πυλών 'gate'. It consists of two pyramidal towers, each tapered and surmounted by

459-428: A series of steps. Before anything was built, there was already some kind of dedication ceremony at the site. A ceremonial gateway with receptacles for liquid offerings stood at the beginning of a paved avenue. The avenue extended eastward and was lined with sphinxes , but they were later replaced by trees (tree pits, some still containing tree roots, have been excavated). The avenue led up to a small mud-brick shrine which

510-577: A small cosmetic container in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art . It had been bought almost thirty years previously, without provenance , from Egyptologist Howard Carter . The British Egyptologists Aidan Dodson and Dyan Hilton wrote: Akhenaten and his family were based in Thebes for the first four years of his reign, establishing the new capital city at Amarna in Year 5. Kiya

561-596: Is a gilded wooden coffin of costly and intricate workmanship that was discovered in Tomb KV55 in the Valley of the Kings. The coffin's footboard contains an Atenist prayer that was originally intended for a woman, but was later revised to a refer to a man – with enough grammatical errors to betray the gender of the original speaker. The style of the coffin and the language of its surviving inscriptions place its manufacture in

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612-492: Is a wine docket from Amarna that mentions Akhenaten's Year 11, indicating that Kiya's estate produced a vintage in that year. Whether she died, was exiled, or suffered some other misfortune, Egyptologists have often interpreted the erasure of her name as a sign of disgrace. Various scenarios have been advanced to explain Kiya's disappearance. Having suggested that Kiya was the mother of Tutankhamun, Nicholas Reeves writes that "it

663-603: Is actually a variant of the Ancient Egyptian word for "monkey," making it unnecessary to assume a foreign origin for her. In inscriptions, Kiya is given the titles of "The Favorite" and "The Greatly Beloved," but never of "Heiress" or " Great Royal Wife ", which suggests that she was not of royal Egyptian blood. Her full titles read, "The wife and greatly beloved of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Living in Truth, Lord of

714-559: Is not attested during this early period. Only after the move to Amarna does she emerge through inscriptional evidence as one of Akhenaten's wives. Kiya's name appeared prominently in the temple installation known as the Maru-Aten, at the southern edge of the city, according to epigraphic studies. The inscriptions in the Maru-Aten were eventually recarved to replace the name and titles of Kiya with those of Akhenaten's eldest daughter, Meritaten . One or more "sunshades" or side-chapels in

765-402: Is not beyond the realm of possibility that she fell from grace in a coup engineered by the jealous Nefertiti herself." Having argued that Kiya was Tadukhipa, daughter of the King of Mitanni, Marc Gabolde suggests that she "paid the price" for a deterioration in the alliance between Egypt and Mitanni and was sent back home. It is uncertain whether Kiya ever used the rich funerary equipment that

816-550: Is that they represent the death in childbirth of the deceased, although this view has recently been challenged. The conventional interpretation has encouraged speculation that Kiya died bearing Akhenaten a child, but again, no clear-cut evidence is available. Some have speculated that the mummy known as the Younger Lady , discovered in KV35 , might be that of Kiya. According to Joann Fletcher (who controversially identified

867-474: The Amarna Letters indicate that she was of marriageable age at that time. In particular, Amarna Letters 27 through 29 confirm that Tadukhipa became one of Akhenaten's wives. Thus some Egyptologists have proposed that Tadukhipa and Kiya might be the same person. However, there is no confirming evidence that Kiya was anything but a native Egyptian. In fact, Cyril Aldred proposed that her unusual name

918-414: The mummy cache in the tomb of Amenhotep II . Kiya disappears from history during the last third of Akhenaten's reign. Her name and images were erased from monuments and replaced by those of Akhenaten's daughters. The exact year of her disappearance is unknown, with recent authorities suggesting dates that range from Year 11 or 12 to Year 16 of Akhenaten. One of the last datable instances of her name

969-515: The 18th dynasty reign of Akhenaten, the new city of Akhetaten was completely built up and the regular worship of the Aten was established. However, shortly after the pharaoh's death, all fell apart as successive kings destroyed the Temple and the city in an effort to return to the traditional religion of Egypt. Nonetheless, enough remains preserved of the Great Temple of the Aten to be able to get

1020-548: The Aten, and this was a series of six courtyards separated by pylons, all leading to a main sanctuary and altar. This Temple differed from temples of other gods because as one progressed through the courts, they became more open to the air and light, as opposed to temples like those of Amun - Ra where the halls would get darker and more shrouded in mystery. The first court had a high altar with small chapels and chambers on either side. Each successive court had altars and magazines where offering supplies could be stored. The fourth court

1071-489: The Aten. Offerings consisted of food, drink, flowers, and perfume and were often accompanied by burning incense and pouring libations. To consecrate offerings, a special baton called a ḫrp was used to touch the offerings, marking it as meant for the Aten. Each day, the royal family approached the temple on chariots after riding up and down the Royal Road, and entered the temple precinct and presented offerings in front of

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1122-489: The Gem-Aten. The king and queen then consecrated their offerings with the ḫrp while their daughters rattled sistra . The family then passed through the pylons of the Gem-Aten and mounted the steps of the High Altar where there were offerings of meat, poultry, vegetables, and flowers already laid out and surmounted by three pans of burning incense. As the king and queen officiated, priests then placed offerings on many of

1173-635: The Two Lands, Neferkheperure Waenre, the Goodly Child of the Living Aten , who shall be living for ever and ever, Kiya." All artifacts relating to Kiya derive from Amarna , Akhenaten's short-lived capital city, or from Tomb KV55 in the Valley of the Kings . She is not attested during the reign of any other pharaoh. Kiya's existence was unknown until 1959, when her name and titles were noted on

1224-513: The area is difficult because of the presence of the modern-day cemetery of Et-Till. The second main structure of the Great Temple was the Sanctuary at its east end, which may have been inspired by the Fifth Dynasty Sun Temples at Abu Ghuroub (c. 2400 BCE). The Sanctuary started with a pylon that led into an open court, on the south side of which were three houses probably intended for the priests on duty. A second pylon led to

1275-521: The area. Based on the remaining foundations he found as well as on multiple scenes of the Great Temple found in private tomb decoration in Amarna, a comprehensive reconstruction of the temple has been possible. One of the most distinctive aspects of the Temple was that there was no cult image of the god. Instead, the Temple was open-aired and had no roof, so that people worshipped the actual sun directly overhead as it traveled from east to west. In fact this

1326-470: The beginning of the world. This marked one of the holiest areas in the Temple and it was heaped in flowers and offerings. Today only a fragment of this stone has been found (discovered by Carter in 1892), but it was identified as a benben stone based on scenes of the Temple found in nearby tombs. Also between the Gem-Aten and the Sanctuary in the Great Temple was a large square building where meat offerings were slaughtered and prepared, but further excavation of

1377-586: The city's largest temple to the Aten , the Per-Aten, also originally bore the name of Kiya. These sunshades were later reinscribed for Meritaten and Ankhesenpaaten , the third daughter of Akhenaten. Some of the recarved inscriptions indicate that Kiya had a daughter, whose name is not preserved. Marc Gabolde proposes that Kiya's daughter was Beketaten , who is more often identified as a daughter of Amenhotep III and Tiye . The most spectacular of Kiya's monuments

1428-438: The coins and pottery we found, it appears to be a massive regional center that traded with Greece, Turkey and Libya." This is part of a larger project aiming to map as much of ancient Egypt's archaeological sites, or "tells," as possible before they are destroyed or covered by modern development. Although Akhenaten had several temples dedicated to the Aten, the Great Temple of the Aten was the largest and most significant. During

1479-458: The early years of the twenty-first, have mentioned the hypothesis that Kiya was Tutankhamun's mother. If she had indeed borne a male heir to Akhenaten, this distinction might well merit unique honors. However, genetic studies of the Egyptian royal mummies, led by Zahi Hawass and Carsten Pusch, have now established that Tutankhamun's biological mother was KV35YL, the " Younger Lady " discovered in

1530-457: The entrance into the Per-Hai and it had swinging doors and five pairs of tall masts with crimson pennants flanking the doorway. The inside of the Per-Hai had two rows of four columns on each side. Within these colonnades were altars made of limestone carved with images of the King and Queen giving offerings. Through the Per-Hai and the next great pylon was the Gem-Aten, the [Place of] He Who Found

1581-400: The first of these structures, the Gem-Aten, which was a very long building preceded by a court called the Per-Hai (House of Rejoicing). On the left of the main entrance to the Temple was a columned pavilion and on both the left and the right were small chapels. These chapels, originally built for Queen Kiya , were later taken over by the elder princesses. The first great pylon directly ahead was

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1632-538: The god Amun were often carried out on the top of temple pylons. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon. In addition to standard vertical grooves on the exterior face of a pylon wall which were designed to hold flag poles, some pylons also contained internal stairways and rooms. The oldest intact pylons belong to mortuary temples from the Ramesside period in the 13th and 12th centuries BCE. Both Neoclassical and Egyptian Revival architecture employ

1683-432: The historical record, in contrast to those of Akhenaten's 'Great royal wife', Nefertiti . Her unusual name suggests that she may originally have been a Mitanni princess. Surviving evidence demonstrates that Kiya was an important figure at Akhenaten's court during the middle years of his reign, when she had a daughter with him. She disappears from history a few years before her royal husband's death. In previous years, she

1734-437: The local populace. Beyond this High Altar the Gem-Aten abruptly ended in a blank wall, which shows no sign of having had a door in it. On the outside of the Gem-Aten there was enough room to have a large ambulatory and there were 40 rows of 20 offering tables set up on each side. Between the Gem-Aten and the Sanctuary, the main building at the east end of the enclosure, was a smaller, more sacred pillared portico with statues of

1785-514: The mummy as Nefertiti ) a Nubian-style wig was found near the mummy. This style was also associated with Kiya. DNA test results published in February 2010 have shown conclusively that the Younger Lady mummy was the mother of Tutankhamun , and by extension a wife of Akhenaten. The results also show that she was a full sister to her husband, and that they were both the children of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. This family relationship rules out

1836-407: The only one whose name survives. Two of the chambers originally included painted plaster reliefs depicting Akhenaten, Nefertiti, certain of their daughters, and other mourners lamenting the deceased. Some Egyptologists have suggested that one of these scenes of mourning refers to Kiya, although no specific evidence supports this claim. Further, the conventional interpretation of the mourning scenes

1887-413: The other altars for the public people while music was played. The princesses continued to rattle the sistra while four male chanters sang hymns to the Aten within the Gem-Aten court. Outside the Gem-Aten were female musicians who performed along with the temple choir which was made up of blind singers and a blind harpist. These musicians performed at intervals throughout the day and were never allowed beyond

1938-505: The outer court. Flinders Petrie was the first person to work in the temple, and his assistant, Howard Carter excavated in the sanctuary area. However, it was John Pendlebury who actually fully mapped this area during his excavations in 1935. The EES Amarna Survey project returned to re–dig the site and corrected some mistakes in the mapping. Project leader Sarah Parcak of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, "Based on

1989-405: The pharaoh Akhenaten and his family standing in front of each column. Inside the portico was a great quartzite stela next to a colossal seated statue of Akhenaten. This stela was carved with images of Akhenaten and Nefertiti and was a variation of a benben stone , a sacred solar symbol of Heliopolis . Traditionally, the benben stone was a representation of the island created by the sun-god Atum at

2040-850: The pylon form, with Boodle's gentlemen's club in London being an example of the Neoclassical style. The 19th and 20th centuries saw pylon architecture employed for bridges such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and as stand-alone monuments such as the Patcham Pylon in Brighton and Hove , England. Kiya Kiya was one of the wives of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten . Little is known about her, and her actions and roles are poorly documented in

2091-413: The reign of Akhenaten. Scholarly opinion now makes Kiya its original owner. The richness of this coffin, which is comparable in style to the middle coffin of Tutankhamun , provides further evidence of Kiya's exalted status at Amarna. Many Egyptologists have tried to produce an explanation for her prominence. Numerous scholarly discussions of Tutankhamun's parentage during the late twentieth century, and

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2142-498: The royal women. Since there was no cult statue, the traditional acts of raising and washing the god played no role in the Great Temple and worship rather consisted solely of singing hymns and giving offerings to the Aten. Some hymns told stories, such as one that attributed the Aten with the creation of the human race and recognized that people were created differently, to speak different languages and have different colored skins, while other hymns simply expressed adoration and gratitude to

2193-570: The walls so particularly high constructions meant to hold a lot of weight had to be made differently. For pylon towers and large surrounding walls like those at the Great Temple of the Aten, timber was used for structural support and the public buildings within the Temple had stone columns and were built of other stones for more support. Stone columns conformed to the usual style found elsewhere in Egypt, representing either palm-frond or papyrus. To lay out structural elements like offering tables and pits on

2244-405: The west side of the enclosure. With this addition, the original ceremonial gate had to be taken down and a raised causeway was built over it. The Gem-Aten was originally constructed in stone, but it seems that as time went on Akhenaten ran low on materials and the latter part of the Gem-Aten was finished with mud-brick. It is unknown exactly how the Temple walls were decorated because the entire area

2295-456: Was a common theme amongst all of the Aten temples; they were all arranged to direct worship towards the sky (such as in the Ḥwt Aten (Mansion of Aten), the smaller temple of Aten located 500m south of the Great Temple in Akhetaten). In the Great Temple there were two main structures, the Gem-Aten and the Sanctuary, which were separated by about 300m. Upon entering the enclosure wall, one faced

2346-476: Was columned and had many furnished chambers where people could rest in the shade. The final court had a main High Altar intended for the Royal pair, and it was surrounded by 365 mud-brick altars on either side, one for each day of the year, divided to represent Upper and Lower Egypt. The offerings given here were dedicated to the Aten but were then used to feed the officiating priests, the temple staff, and even some of

2397-521: Was destroyed later on, but fragments that have been found show that there were many statues of Akhenaten and his family placed all around the Temple. The Great Temple of the Aten lay to the north of the Central City part of Akhetaten and was separated from the Palace by many storehouses. The Temple was oriented on an east-west axis and the western entrance to the Great Temple was along the Royal Road,

2448-403: Was later built into the main design scheme of the Temple. The first main construction undertaken by Akhenaten was the building of the temenos wall, enclosing a huge area of 229m x 730m. As the wall was being completed, the stone Sanctuary at the east end of the enclosure was built. This Sanctuary seemed to function on its own for some time until a few years later when Akhenaten added the Gem-Aten on

2499-451: Was no rain to deteriorate the bricks but they would wear down from wind-swept sand, so for protection walls were plastered with a layer of mud that could be reapplied. As the bricks dried, they often shrank leading to warping and structural problems, so a technique was developed of arranging the rows of bricks so that every other row was nearly hollow, allowing for air to circulate. While this helped walls keep their form, it also acted to weaken

2550-644: Was prepared against her death. If her disappearance resulted from disgrace or exile, the answer would be no. On the other hand, if she died in good standing with Akhenaten, she probably would have received a lavish burial appropriate to her station. In the latter case, a likely site for her interment would be the Amarna Royal Tomb, which includes a suite of three chambers evidently used to house female members of Akhenaten's family. At least two and possibly as many as three different individuals were interred in this suite, including Akhenaten's daughter Meketaten ,

2601-474: Was thought to be mother of Tutankhamun , but recent DNA evidence suggests this is unlikely. The name Kiya itself is cause for debate. It has been suggested that it is a "pet" form, rather than a full name, and as such could be a contraction of a foreign name, such as the Mitanni name " Tadukhipa ," referring to the daughter of King Tushratta . Tadukhipa married Amenhotep III at the very end of his reign, and

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