New Kingdom: House Altar with Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Three Daughters

Art History

Ancient Egypt

Introduction
Egyptian Art
Materials & Techniques
Ancient Near Eastern & Ancient Egyptian Art
Old Kingdom: Seated Scribe
New Kingdom: House Altar with Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Three Daughters
Portrait Head of Queen Tiye with a Crown of Two Feathers
New Kingdom: Thutmose's Bust of Nefertiti
New Kingdom: Ramesses II
Ptolemaic: Rosetta Stone

New Kingdom: House Altar with Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Three Daughters House Altar depicting Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Three of their Daughters, limestone, New Kingdom, Amarna period, 18th dynasty, c.1350 BCE (Ägyptisches Museum/Neues Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin)

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New Kingdom: House Altar with Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Three Daughters

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[Male Narrator] So around 1350 BC, everything changed in Egyptian art
[Female Narrator] When we think about Egyptian art, we don't think of change
[Male] That's true the old kingdom, the middle kingdom, the
new Kingdom and the transitional periods between art
is consistent for almost 3000 years but there is
this radical break right around 1350 and it's because
the ruler Akhenaten, changes the state religion.
[Female] He changes it from the worship from the god
Amun to a new god, a sun god called Aten so he
actually changes his own name to Akhenaten
which means "Aten is pleased". [Male laughs]
[Female] The key is he makes him and his wife the
only representatives of Aten on earth so he upsets
the entire priesthood of Egypt by making him and his
wife the only ones with access to this new god Aten.
[Male] And in fact, after Akhenaten dies, Egypt will return
to its traditional religion. So this period is a very brief
episode in Egyptian history, but it also marks a real
shift in style and this small stone plaque that we're
looking at, this sunken relief carving which would've
been placed in a private, domestic environment
is a perfect example of those stylistic changes
[Female] Right, it would've been an altar in someone's
home where they would've seen Akhenaten and his
wife Nefertiti and their relationship to the god
Aten. This has always been one of my favorite sculptures.
It's so informal compared to most Egyptian art, we
really have a sense of a couple and their relationship
with one another and their relationship with their
children, and love and domesticity.
[Male] So let's take a close look. On the left you have
Akhenaten himself, this is the Pharoh of Egypt,
supreme ruler. You can see that he's holding his
eldest daughter and he's actually getting ready to kiss
her, he seems to be holding her very tenderly.
Supporting her head, holding her under the thighs.
She seems to be perhaps pointing back to her mother
at the same moment. [Female] We see Nefertiti
holding another daughter on her lap pointing
back to Akhenaten, and yet a third daughter
the youngest one on her shoulder playing with her
earring. I think it's immediately apparent that there's
something wrong with their anatomy. If you look at the
children or we look at Nefertiti or Akhenaten
we see swollen bellies, very thin arms and elongated
skulls, forms that have made art historians wonder
whether there was something medically wrong with
Akhenaten. [Male] In fact, we don't think that there was
we think that this is a purely stylistic break that
was meant to distinguish this new age, this new
religion from Egypt's past. [Female] Egyptian art had
been dominated by rectilinear forms, here Akhenaten
seems to be demanding this new style, dominated
by curvilinear forms. [Male] Look at the careful
attention to the drapery, there is a softness
throughout that is in absolute contrast to the traditions
of Egyptian art. But in some ways, there are elements
of traditional Egyptian sculpture. [Female]
Right, we still see a composite view of the body and
a profile view of the face, but a frontal view of the eye.
[Male] Right or one hand is facing us but the shoulders
are squared with us so as much of the body is
exposed to us as possible while the figures are still in
profile. So let's take a look at some of the iconography
here, this little panel really tells us a lot. God is
present, Aten is present, here rendered as the sun
disk. And from that sun, which has a small cobra in it
which signifies that this is the supreme deity. The only
deity. Akhenaten was a monotheist and this was in
such contrast to the pantheon of gods that traditional
Egyptian religion counted on. Here Akhenaten says
"No, there is only one true God" so we can see the
cobra, we can see the sun disk and then we can see
rays of light that pour down and if you look closely you
can see hands at the ends of those rays except for
the rays that terminate right at the faces of the King
and Queen, and there you see not only hands but also
Ankhs, the Egyptian sign of life and so it's as if Aten
is giving life to these two people and these two people alone.
[Female] Those rays of light are holding those Ankhs
right at the noses, the breath of life for Akhenaten and
Nefertiti. We can see in the throne of Nefertiti symbols
of both Upper and Lower Egypt, indicating that Nefertiti
is Queen of both. [Male] Akhenaten himself is sitting on
a simpler throne, it does give a sense of her
importance and the fact that they would rule Egypt together.

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