Introduction to Amarna

Introduction to the royal city of Amarna

The city of Amarna was built by the heretic pharaoh ‘Akhenaten’ to worship the sun’s disk, the Aten. The pharaoh  chose this site for the new religion and lived there with his family, including his wife, Nefertiti. The experiment ended shortly after Akhenaten’s death (c.1332BC).

The Egypt Centre holds over 200 objects from the royal site of Amarna. You can find out about some of them here.In this talk we will be looking some of the items king Akhenaten and Nefertiti enjoyed including: plaster from the North Riverside Palace, fragments of a pottery vessel which contained wine from a vineyard in the Delta, jewellery and cosmetic containers, festival vessels and even food remains!