How did Akhenaten's rule (lasting from 1350 to 1332 BC), with particular reference to religious reforms, influence the society of Egypt and its people; how effective was his overall administration of the Egyptian empire?.
Akhenaten, the so called "Heretic Pharaoh" was a Ruler of Egypt during the period known as the 18th Dynasty. He ascended to the throne as Amenhotep IV, succeeding his father Amenhotep III. Akhenaten's brief reign, of hardly more than sixteen years, happened at a difficult time in Egyptian history; a period in which the decline of the previously unparalleled Egyptian empire seemed inevitable. Many scholars maintain that Akhenaten was responsible for this decline, but evidence suggests that it had already started. Whatever his connection with the decline of the Empire, one aspect of Akhenaten's reign is indisputable: his religious reforms. Effectively discarding the beliefs of an Empire, Akhenaten denounced the existing polytheist religious hierarchy and replaced it with the monotheist worship of a sole God; the Aten, or sun disk. These religious reforms meant the upheaval of a kingdom surrounded by controversy and mistrust. .
Akhenaten, possibly in a move to lessen the political power of the Priests, introduced the worship of one god, the Aten, or Sun disk. This meant that the Pharaoh, not the priesthood, was the sole link between the population and the Aten which effectively ended the power of the various temples. By introducing the monotheist religious worship of a sole God, the Aten, he was effectively denouncing generations of religious belief on the part of his predecessors. The controversy surrouding his reign is magnified by the ways in which Akhenaten enforced his beliefs. So great was his apparent devotion to the deity who he worshipped not only as his sole God but as his "father," that Akhenaten went so far as to erase the names of the existing Gods from temples and reliefs throughout the Empire.
