[98] Rib-Hadda would pay the ultimate price; his exile from Byblos due to a coup led by his brother Ilirabih is mentioned in one letter. He found evidence that the tomb had been discovered before, a few millennia ago: 200 years after the remains were initially interred, Ancient Egyptian workers stumbled upon the sepulcher while digging away to build the tomb of Ramesses IX. The pharaoh contrasted this with the only remaining god, the sun disc Aten, who continued to move and exist forever. One wonders what anatomists three thousand years from now might identify as the abnormality suffered by some of the models who posed for Picasso’s paintings? An Amarna letter preserves a complaint by Tushratta to Akhenaten about the situation: I...asked your father Mimmureya for statues of solid cast gold, [...] and your father said, 'Don't talk of giving statues just of solid cast gold. For example, Norman de Garis Davies praised Akhenaten's emphasis on diplomacy over war, while James Baikie said that the fact "that there is no evidence of revolt within the borders of Egypt itself during the whole reign is surely ample proof that there was no such abandonment of his royal duties on the part of Akhenaten as has been assumed. Nor does the archaeological evidence agree with Aldred’s assumption regarding Akhenaten’s representation. Some view this to indicate that Akhenaten fathered his own grandchildren. Why do you act so? Some Egyptologists, such as William Murnane, proposed that Kiya is a colloqial name of the Mitanni princess Tadukhipa, daughter of the Mitanni king Tushratta, widow of Amenhotep III, and later wife of Akhenaten. Moreover, the High Priest of Amun was still active in the fourth year of Amenhotep IV's reign. About a month later, day thirteen of the growing season's fourth month, one of the boundary stela at Akhetaten already had the name Akhenaten carved on it, implying that Akhenaten changed his name between the two inscriptions. [49] Redford and James K. Hoffmeier stated, however, that Ra's cult was so widespread and established throughout Egypt that Akhenaten could have been influenced by solar worship even if he did not grow up around Heliopolis.

Dozens of letters detail that Akhenaten – and Amenhotep III – sent Egyptian and Nubian troops, armies, archers, chariots, horses, and ships.[105]. It has now been shown through DNA analysis that the remains found in the tomb are those of Akenaten himself. On page, Thomas Mann made Akhenaten the "dreaming pharaoh" of Joseph's story in the fictional biblical tetraology Joseph and His Brothers from 1933–1943. [64] Second, even though he later moved his capital from Thebes to Akhetaten, his initial royal titulary honored Thebes (for example, his nomen was "Amenhotep, god-ruler of Thebes"), and recognizing its importance, he called Thebes "Southern Heliopolis, the first great (seat) of Re (or) the Disc." Because only he knew his father's mind and will, Akhenaten alone could interpret that will for all mankind with true teaching coming only from him.

Additionally, Pauline Gedge's 1984 novel The Twelfth Transforming is set in the reign of Akhenaten, details the construction of Akhetaten and includes accounts of his sexual relationships with Nefertiti, Tiye and successor Smenkhkare. Aldred proposed that Akhenaten's unusual artistic inclinations might have been formed during his time serving Ptah, who was the patron god of craftsmen, and whose high priest were sometimes referred to as "The Greatest of the Directors of Craftsmanship. [79] The pharaoh chose a site about halfway between Thebes, the capital at the time, and Memphis, on the east bank of the Nile, where a wadi and a natural dip in the surrounding cliffs form a silhouette similar to the "horizon" hieroglyph. [...] When he had sought out the gods' precincts which were in ruins in this land, he refounded them just as they had been since the time of the first primeval age. [67] In Ramose's tomb, Amenhotep IV appears on the west wall, seated on a throne, with Ramose appearing before the pharaoh. Akhenaten wearied of Rib-Hadda's constant correspondences and once told Rib-Hadda: "You are the one that writes to me more than all the (other) mayors" or Egyptian vassals in EA 124. [...] In my brother's country gold is as plentiful as dust.

This gives considerable support to the view, long held, that the alleged remains of Akhenaten from Valley Tomb No. "[201], Some debate has focused on the extent to which Akhenaten forced his religious reforms on his people. [254] He was portrayed in the Greek play Pharaoh Akhenaton (Greek: Φαραώ Αχενατόν) by Angelos Prokopiou. Early Egyptologists attributed her death possibly to childbirth, because of a depiction of an infant in her tomb.