Abstract
Few personalities of the ancient world continue to hold as much interest as Akhenaten who carried out a fundamental reform of religion and political ideology in Egypt of the mid-14th century BC. Was Akhenaten then an enlightened religious and political reformer, an idealistic ruler, a sage, a mystic and an ecstatic? Or was he a mentally ill and physicallly frail human being? This article represents an attempt to look into the theological and ideological background to the Akhenaten's rule and explore his motivation form carrying out such a momentous political, social and economic reform.
Our focus shall be on often overlooked aspects of the Amarna reform, which include the issue of the structure of the Egyptian pantheon, the manner in which the gods were depicted under the classical, pre-Amarna cult, and during the radical change enforced by Akhenaten, as well as on the changes in the concept of the justification of a person after death and the fate of that peson in the Afterlife.