Western Civilization. Paul R. Waibel
Akhenaten to see how radically new were the artistic styles.
Literature embraced the artistry of the Amarna period. Akhenaten himself is believed to have written a number of hymn‐poems to Aten. The “Great Hymn to Aten,” found on the west wall of the tomb of Ay, Akhenaten's chief minister and pharaoh after the death of Tutankhamun (Tutankhaten), is the primary source for the new religion.
O sole god without equal!
You are alone, shining in your form of the living Aten.
Risen, radiant, distant, and near.
(Great Hymn, 47 & 73–74)
The noted Egyptologist Toby A.H. Wilkinson (b. 1969) says that “it has been called ‘one of the most significant and splendid pieces of poetry to survive from the pre‐Homeric world’” (Darnell and Manassa 2007, p. 41).
Akhenaten's religious reforms may represent a power struggle between the pharaoh and the powerful priesthood of Amun (Amen, Amen Re) at Thebes. Ahmose I emphasized the worship of Amun when he drove the Hyksos out of Egypt, perhaps as an attempt to unify the Egyptian people after roughly one century of foreign rule in Lower Egypt. By the beginning of the reign of Akhenaten, the power of the priests of Amun in Thebes rivaled that of the pharaoh. The fact that Akhenaten changed his name, built a new capital and center for the worship of Aten, and attempted to erase the worship of Amun and the other traditional gods, supports the theory that his religious reforms were a part of an effort to restore the pharaoh's historic position as the sole ruler of Egypt. Also, it is worth noting that the new religion was not in fact true monotheism. Only Akhenaten and his family worshiped Aten. All others worshiped the pharaoh, Akhenaten. The pharaoh was the only access to Aten.
Akhenaten's attempt to establish the worship of Aten did not survive him. His obsession with his new religion meant he neglected his responsibility to rule and defend Egypt. The resulting chaos or appearance of chaos no doubt contributed to the abandonment of Atenism and the restoration of Amun and his powerful priesthood. Akhenaten's son, Tutankhaten (c. 1341–c. 1323), ascended the throne at age nine or ten. The worship of Aten was abandoned along with Akhetaten, which was left to eventually disappear beneath the sand. The temples to Aten were abandoned as well and became the source of building materials for new construction. In the third year of his reign, Tutankhaten changed his name to Tutankhamun, meaning “Living Image of Amun.”
Tutankhamun was a minor pharaoh who likely would have been forgotten if the British archeologist Howard Carter (1874–1939) had not discovered his tomb in 1922. The discovery of the only intact tomb of a pharaoh was one of the greatest discoveries in the history of Egyptology. When one considers what was found in King Tut's tomb, one can only wonder what might have been found in the tomb of, say, Ramses II.
Ramses II, also known as Ramses the Great (c. 1303–1213 BC), became pharaoh at 30 and reigned for 67 years. It is not just his longevity that makes him the most celebrated of Egypt's pharaohs. He reasserted Egyptian control over territories lost due to Akhenaten's neglect. He led successful campaigns north to Syria and south to Nubia. At the Battle of Kadesh (1258 BC) in Syria, Ramses II's forces engaged the Hittites led by King Muwatalli II (c. 1295–1272 BC). Ramses II hailed it as a great victory. He had his account of the battle carved on the walls of the great temple of Abu Simbel. Most scholars today believe the battle was indecisive. The Battle of Kadesh is significant because it resulted in the Treaty of Kadesh, the first known peace treaty in history.
Ramses II is considered by many the greatest pharaoh of the Egyptian Empire. When his mummy was sent to Paris in 1974 to be treated for a fungus, he was issued an Egyptian passport that listed his occupation as “King (deceased).” Upon arrival at Le Bourget Airport near Paris, his mummy was greeted with full military honors and a red carpet.7 After Ramses II's death, the Egyptian Empire began a steady, prolonged decline. Ramses III (1217–1155 BC) was the last great pharaoh of the New Kingdom. He reigned 1186–1155 BC, during a period of economic decline and foreign invasions.
The whole of the Middle East, indeed the whole of the Mediterranean world, was experiencing a tidal wave of migration and invasion between 1250 and 900 BC. Indo‐European‐speaking people swept down from the north destroying everything in their path. On the Greek mainland, the Mycenaean civilization, the Greece of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, was destroyed by the invaders. The powerful Hittite Empire also succumbed. The Egyptians were driven back into Africa, but were able to beat back repeated assaults by invaders referred to as the “Sea People,” some of whom may have been refugees from Greece.
Of those civilizations that were present in 1200 BC, only weakened Egypt survived the cataclysm. In the Middle East, there was a power vacuum. Between c. 1250 and 750 BC, no one power exerted hegemony over the area. This period before the rise of the empires of the Assyrians, Chaldeans (Neo‐Babylonian), and Persians is referred to as the “era of the small kingdoms.” The Phoenician (or Canaanite) city‐states flourished along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and the Hebrew Kingdom of Israel rose and fell.
The brief life of the Kingdom of Israel merits attention, for the ancient Hebrews provide one of the three streams of civilization that blend together to produce what we call Western, or European, Civilization. The other two are the Greco‐Roman, or Classical, and Germanic traditions. It is primarily to the Hebrews and the Greeks, not the Egyptians or other civilizations of the ancient Near East, that we look to for the spiritual roots of Western Civilization. The Hebrews broke radically with the other peoples of the ancient Near East in how they answered the perennial questions of the meaning and purpose of existence.
Hebrews
Much of what is known about the early history of the Hebrews comes from the Hebrew Scriptures. They are a sacred history, the story of a special, covenant relationship between the one God (Yahweh) and his chosen people, the Hebrews.8 According to the biblical story, Yahweh is the eternally existing, personal, sovereign creator of all that exists, the one who chose to identify Himself to Moses9 (Exodus 3) as “I AM.” The Hebrew people were a seminomadic group of sheep herders who Yahweh chose to be his people. They were not chosen because of who they were, but to become the means by which Yahweh would make himself known to his creation, and through whom he would bless all his creation.
The Hebrew Scriptures relate the story of a group of Hebrews who left the city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia sometime around 1900 BC on a journey westward to the land of Canaan. They were led by Abram, later known as Abraham (“father of a multitude”). Abraham's great‐grandson, Joseph, was taken to Egypt, where he was a slave who became a high official of the pharaoh. That was likely during the time when the Hyksos ruled Lower Egypt. Being foreigners themselves, they would not have any reservations about appointing a foreigner to a position of importance in the government.
When a severe famine struck Canaan, Joseph's father, Jacob, went to Egypt with his family. The Hebrews prospered and grew in number until, according to Exodus 1:8, “there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” (ESV). The new pharaoh, perhaps alarmed by the fact that the foreigners were living on the frontier of Egypt through which the Hyksos had invaded Egypt and through which any future invasion would likely come, decided to make forced laborers, or slaves, out of them.
The Hebrews were in bondage in Egypt perhaps 400 (Genesis 15:13) or 430 years (Exodus 12:41). When the period of bondage in Egypt, foretold in Genesis 15:13, was fulfilled, the Hebrew people were led out of Egypt by Moses, a leader raised up by Yahweh for that purpose. Moses led them into the Sinai Peninsula, where they wandered for 40 years. Yahweh renewed his covenant with the Hebrews and gave them a code of laws, both legal and moral. During that period, known as the Exodus, the Hebrews became a nation.
There is much debate over when the Exodus occurred. It took place in the year 2448, according to the Jewish calendar. Some scholars, called biblical minimalists (or the Copenhagen School), do not believe