Amenhotep III. died in about the forty-ninth year of his age, after a total reign of thirty-six years; and Akhnaton, who still bore the name of Amenhotep, ascended the throne.  One must picture him now as an enthusiastic boy, filled with the new thought of the age, and burning to assert the broad doctrines which he had learned from his mother and her friends, in defiance of the priests of Amon-Ra.  He was already married to a Syrian named Nefertiti, and certainly before he was fifteen years of age he was the father of two daughters.

The new Pharaoh’s first move, under the guidance of Tiy, was to proclaim Aton the only true god, and to name himself high priest of that deity.  He then began to build a temple dedicated to Aton at Karnak; but it must have been distasteful to observe how overshadowed and dwarfed was this new temple by the mighty buildings in honour of the older gods which stood there.  Moreover, there must have been very serious opposition to the new religion in Thebes, where Amon had ruled for so many centuries unchallenged.  In whatever direction he looked he was confronted with some evidence of the worship of Amon-Ra:  he might proclaim Aton to be the only god, but Amon and a hundred other deities stared down at him from every temple wall.  He and his advisers, therefore, decided to abandon Thebes altogether and to found a new capital elsewhere.

Akhnaton selected a site for the new city on the west bank of the river, at a point now named El Amarna, about 160 miles above Cairo.  Here the hills recede from the river, forming a bay about three miles deep and five long; and in this bay the young Pharaoh decided to build his capital, which was named “Horizon of Aton.”  With feverish speed the new buildings were erected.  A palace even more beautiful than that of his parents at Thebes was prepared for him; a splendid temple dedicated to Aton was set up amidst a garden of rare trees and brilliant flowers; villas for his nobles were erected, and streets were laid out.  Queen Tiy, who seems to have continued to live at Thebes, often came down to El Amarna to visit her son; but it seems to have been at his own wish rather than at her advice that he now took the important step which set the seal of his religion upon his life.

Around the bay of El Amarna, on the cliffs which shut it off so securely, the King caused landmarks to be made at intervals, and on these he inscribed an oath which some have interpreted to mean that he would never again leave his new city.  He would remain, like the Pope in the Vatican, for the rest of his days within the limits of this bay; and, rather than be distracted by the cares of state and the worries of empire, he would shut himself up with his god and would devote his life to his religion.  He was but a youth still, and, to his inexperienced mind, this oath seemed nothing; nor in his brief life does it seem that he broke it, though at times he must have longed to visit his domains.