uential woman. She appears almost trice as many times as her husband in the talatats. And she is seen holding a sword or club. We will discuss the role of Akhenaten and his family life later. He continues to worship the god Amen. In fact the name of the god is mentioned along side that of AMENHOTEP IV and many of his officials. And a high priest of Amen is still in favor in the early years of his reign . But by the third year of his reign we see a shift in attitude. AMENHOTEP IV decided to hold a jubilee. This was highly untraditional, since the jubilee was normally held to celebrate 30 years or more of rule. Scholars speculate that the jubilee may not have been for Amenhotep IV himself and maybe for the king and Aten as co-rulers. During the jubilee there was a procession of the gods. This procession however was unusual because the normally closed shrine of the gods are now open and without roofs so that the god Aten can shine his life giving rays down upon them. This can be seen as the start of the revolutionary path that Amenhotep IV would travel. He began his worship of Aten by building a temple in Thebes. The temple was built on the east side of the temple Amen so that it would cast the first rays of the sun each morning, even before the temple of Amen did. We can see by this decision to place the temple in a better place than that of Amen that Amenhotep IV is placing Aten ahead of Amen. He must have wanted the temple to be built quickly because he ordered the built using smaller blocks of stone called talat at, which made for faster construction. Because Aten is the sun disk god, the temple was open and without a roof so that the rays of Aten could shine down upon it. It is noted that no other building projects took place to the east of the temple. By the 5th year of his reign Amenhotep IV has made Aten his personal god. He also changed his name to Akhenaten, which means He who serves Aten. This name change and the m...
