title: Dido (singer)

text: In November 2013, Dido released the album "Greatest Hits", a compilation of previous material and remixes that also included a new track, "NYC". The release of "Greatest Hits" completed Dido's contractual obligations with RCA Records, and she spoke of her plans to release her music independently. By late 2013, she was writing material for a fifth studio album.


title: Dido (singer)

text: Dido signed to BMG to release her fifth album in early 2019. Dido worked with her brother and long-time collaborator Rollo Armstrong, along with Rick Nowels and Ryan Louder. On 9 November 2018, Dido announced her new album's title, "Still on My Mind", along with its cover. It was released on 8 March 2019 and charted at number 3 on the UK Albums chart, number 1 on the UK Indie Album chart and sold over 60,000 copies in the UK. The teaser single "Hurricanes" was released on 12 November 2018. The official lead single "Give You Up" was premiered 22 January 2019 on BBC Radio 2. The single peaked at number 32 on the UK Singles Download chart. It peaked at number 1 on the US Dance Club Songs chart. "Give You Up" was followed by edited versions of "Take You Home" (released 5 April 2019) and "Friends" (released 22 July 2019) as singles. Dido toured in support of the album from May 2019, making it her first world tour in 15 years. The deluxe edition of the album was released on 15 November 2019 but failed to chart, despite the release of another single, "Just Because".


title: Dido (singer)

text: In October 2019, Dido was featured on her brother Rollo's "The Last Summer" album, which was released under the alias "R Plus". The album charted at number 96 on the UK Album Sales Chart.


title: Dido (singer)

text: In addition to her solo work, Dido has co-written and provided vocals for tracks with Faithless, including "One Step Too Far"—which was released in the UK as a limited edition single, where it debuted at number six—and "No Roots", the title track of the fourth Faithless album. Rollo—Dido's brother—co-writes and co-produces much of Dido's solo material, including many tracks on "No Angel", "Life for Rent" and "Safe Trip Home".


title: Dido (singer)

text: She provided guest vocals for each of the six studio albums by Faithless, from 1996's "Reverence" to 2010s "The Dance". Dido worked with her brother on a CD to accompany the children's book he wrote with Jason White, "Safe from Harm"; the CD is also titled "Safe from Harm" and the artist is listed as "Dusted". She co-wrote Britney Spears's worldwide number one hit "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman", soundtrack feature track to Spears's first major film debut, and co-wrote the song "Never Ending" on Rihanna's 2016 album Anti. Dido's song "Thank You" was also sampled by Rihanna for "Never Ending".


title: Dido (singer)

text: Dido has provided guest vocals to tracks by other artists including "Feels Like Fire" for Carlos Santana's 2002 album, "Shaman", and a duet with Rufus Wainwright entitled "I Eat Dinner (When the Hunger's Gone)" for the "" film soundtrack. A sample of the Dido track "Do You Have a Little Time" is used on the song "Don't You Trust Me?" by Tupac, on the album "Loyal to the Game", which was almost entirely produced by Eminem in 2004.


title: Dido (singer)

text: Dido joined Annie Lennox and 21 other female artists to raise awareness of the issue of mother-to-child transmission of HIV to unborn children in Africa. The collaborative single "Sing" was released on World Aids Day on 1 December 2007, in conjunction with Lennox's appearance at the Nelson Mandela 46664 concert in South Africa.


title: Dido (singer)

text: After releasing "No Angel" in 1999, and after much time spent promoting the album, Dido broke up with her fiancé, entertainment lawyer Bob Page, after a seven-year relationship. Dido then married author Rohan Gavin in 2010. They have one son, Stanley, who was born in July 2011.


title: Akhenaten

text: Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( "ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy", , meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Before the fifth year of his reign, he was known as Amenhotep IV (, meaning "Amun is satisfied", Hellenized as "Amenophis IV").


title: Akhenaten

text: As a pharaoh, Akhenaten is noted for abandoning Egypt's traditional polytheism and introducing Atenism, or worship centered around Aten. The views of Egyptologists differ as to whether the religious policy was absolutely monotheistic, or whether it was monolatry, syncretistic, or henotheistic. This culture shift away from traditional religion was reversed after his death. Akhenaten's monuments were dismantled and hidden, his statues were destroyed, and his name excluded from lists of rulers compiled by later pharaohs. Traditional religious practice was gradually restored, notably under his close successor Tutankhamun, who changed his name from Tutankhaten early in his reign. When some dozen years later, rulers without clear rights of succession from the Eighteenth Dynasty founded a new dynasty, they discredited Akhenaten and his immediate successors and referred to Akhenaten as "the enemy" or "that criminal" in archival records.


title: Akhenaten

text: Akhenaten was all but lost to history until the late-19th-century discovery of Amarna, or Akhetaten, the new capital city he built for the worship of Aten. Furthermore, in 1907, a mummy that could be Akhenaten's was unearthed from the tomb KV55 in the Valley of the Kings by Edward R. Ayrton. Genetic testing has determined that the man buried in KV55 was Tutankhamun's father, but its identification as Akhenaten has since been questioned.


title: Akhenaten

text: Akhenaten's rediscovery and Flinders Petrie's early excavations at Amarna sparked great public interest in the pharaoh and his queen Nefertiti. He has been described as "enigmatic", "mysterious", "revolutionary", "the greatest idealist of the world", and "the first individual in history", but also as a "heretic", "fanatic", "possibly insane", and "mad". Public and scholarly fascination with Akhenaten comes from his connection with Tutankhamun, the unique style and high quality of the pictorial arts he patronized, and the religion he attempted to establish, foreshadowing monotheism.


title: Akhenaten

text: The future Akhenaten was born Amenhotep, a younger son of pharaoh Amenhotep III and his principal wife Tiye. Akhenaten had an elder brother, crown prince Thutmose, who was recognized as Amenhotep III's heir. Akhenaten also had four or five sisters: Sitamun, Henuttaneb, Iset, Nebetah, and possibly Beketaten. Thutmose's early death, perhaps around Amenhotep III's thirtieth regnal year, meant that Akhenaten was next in line for Egypt's throne.


title: Akhenaten

text: Akhenaten was married to Nefertiti, his Great Royal Wife. The exact timing of their marriage is unknown, but inscriptions from the pharaoh's building projects suggest that they married either shortly before or after Akhenaten took the throne. For example, Egyptologist Dimitri Laboury suggests that the marriage took place in Akhenaten's fourth regnal year. A secondary wife of Akhenaten named Kiya is also known from inscriptions. Some Egyptologists theorize that she gained her importance as the mother of Tutankhamun. William Murnane proposes that Kiya is the colloquial name of the Mitanni princess Tadukhipa, daughter of the Mitanni king Tushratta who had married Amenhotep III before becoming the wife of Akhenaten. Akhenaten's other attested consorts are the daughter of the Enišasi ruler Šatiya and another daughter of the Babylonian king Burna-Buriash II.


title: Akhenaten

text: Akhenaten could have had seven or eight children based on inscriptions. Egyptologists are fairly certain about his six daughters, who are well attested in contemporary depictions. Among his six daughters, Meritaten was born in regnal year one or five; Meketaten in year four or six; Ankhesenpaaten, later queen of Tutankhamun, before year five or eight; Neferneferuaten Tasherit in year eight or nine; Neferneferure in year nine or ten; and Setepenre in year ten or eleven. Tutankhamun, born Tutankhaten, was most likely Akhenaten's son, with Nefertiti or another wife. There is less certainty around Akhenaten's relationship with Smenkhkare, Akhenaten's coregent or successor and husband to his daughter Meritaten; he could have been Akhenaten's eldest son with an unknown wife or Akhenaten's younger brother.


title: Akhenaten

text: Some historians, such as Edward Wente and James Allen, have proposed that Akhenaten took some of his daughters as wives or sexual consorts to father a male heir. While this is debated, some historical parallels exist: Akhenaten's father Amenhotep III married his daughter Sitamun, while Ramesses II married two or more of his daughters, even though their marriages might simply have been ceremonial. In Akhenaten's case, his oldest daughter Meritaten is recorded as Great Royal Wife to Smenkhkare but is also listed on a box from Tutankhamun's tomb alongside pharaohs Akhenaten and Neferneferuaten as Great Royal Wife. Additionally, letters written to Akhenaten from foreign rulers make reference to Meritaten as "mistress of the house." Egyptologists in the early 20th century also believed that Akhenaten could have fathered a child with his second oldest daughter Meketaten. Meketaten's death, at perhaps age ten to twelve, is recorded in the royal tombs at Akhetaten from around regnal years thirteen or fourteen. Early Egyptologists attribute her death to childbirth, because of the depiction of an infant in her tomb. Because no husband is known for Meketaten, the assumption had been that Akhenaten was the father. Aidan Dodson believes this to be unlikely, as no Egyptian tomb has been found that mentions or alludes to the cause of death of the tomb owner. Further, Jacobus van Dijk proposes that the child is a portrayal of Meketaten's soul. Finally, various monuments, originally for Kiya, were reinscribed for Akhenaten's daughters Meritaten and Ankhesenpaaten. The revised inscriptions list a Meritaten-tasherit ("junior") and an Ankhesenpaaten-tasherit. According to some, this indicates that Akhenaten fathered his own grandchildren. Others hold that, since these grandchildren are not attested to elsewhere, they are fictions invented to fill the space originally portraying Kiya's child.


title: Akhenaten

text: Egyptologists know very little about Akhenaten's life as prince Amenhotep. Donald B. Redford dates his birth before his father Amenhotep III's 25th regnal year, , based on the birth of Akhenaten's first daughter, who was likely born fairly early in his own reign. The only mention of his name, as "the King's Son Amenhotep," was found on a wine docket at Amenhotep III's Malkata palace, where some historians suggested Akhenaten was born. Others contend that he was born at Memphis, where growing up he was influenced by the worship of the sun god Ra practiced at nearby Heliopolis. Redford and James K. Hoffmeier state, 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.


title: Akhenaten

text: Some historians have tried to determine who was Akhenaten's tutor during his youth, and have proposed scribes Heqareshu or Meryre II, the royal tutor Amenemotep, or the vizier Aperel. The only person we know for certain served the prince was Parennefer, whose tomb mentions this fact.


title: Akhenaten

text: Egyptologist Cyril Aldred suggests that prince Amenhotep might have been a High Priest of Ptah in Memphis, although no evidence supporting this had been found. It is known that Amenhotep's brother, crown prince Thutmose, served in this role before he died. If Amenhotep inherited all his brother's roles in preparation for his accession to the throne, he might have become a high priest in Thutmose's stead. Aldred proposes that Akhenaten's unusual artistic inclinations might have been formed during his time serving Ptah, the patron god of craftsmen, whose high priest were sometimes referred to as "The Greatest of the Directors of Craftsmanship."


title: Akhenaten

text: There is much controversy around whether Amenhotep IV ascended to Egypt's throne on the death of his father Amenhotep III or whether there was a coregency, lasting perhaps as long as 12 years. Eric Cline, Nicholas Reeves, Peter Dorman, and other scholars argue strongly against the establishment of a long coregency between the two rulers and in favor of either no coregency or one lasting at most two years. Donald B. Redford, William J. Murnane, Alan Gardiner, and Lawrence Berman contest the view of any coregency whatsoever between Akhenaten and his father.


title: Akhenaten

text: Most recently, in 2014, archaeologists found both pharaohs' names inscribed on the wall of the Luxor tomb of vizier Amenhotep-Huy. The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities called this "conclusive evidence" that Akhenaten shared power with his father for at least eight years, based on the dating of the tomb. However, this conclusion has since been called into question by other Egyptologists, according to whom the inscription only means that construction on Amenhotep-Huy's tomb started during Amenhotep III's reign and ended under Akhenaten's, and Amenhotep-Huy thus simply wanted to pay his respects to both rulers.


title: Akhenaten

text: Akhenaten took Egypt's throne as Amenhotep IV, most likely in 1353 or 1351 BC. It is unknown how old Amenhotep IV was when he did this; estimates range from 10 to 23. He was most likely crowned in Thebes, or less likely at Memphis or Armant.


title: Akhenaten

text: The beginning of Amenhotep IV's reign followed established pharaonic traditions. He did not immediately start redirecting worship toward the Aten and distancing himself from other gods. Egyptologist Donald B. Redford believes this implied that Amenhotep IV's eventual religious policies were not conceived of before his reign, and he did not follow a pre-established plan or program. Redford points to three pieces of evidence to support this. First, surviving inscriptions show Amenhotep IV worshipping several different gods, including Atum, Osiris, Anubis, Nekhbet, Hathor, and the Eye of Ra, and texts from this era refer to "the gods" and "every god and every goddess." The High Priest of Amun was also still active in the fourth year of Amenhotep IV's reign. Second, even though he later moved his capital from Thebes to Akhetaten, his initial royal titulary honored Thebes—his nomen was "Amenhotep, god-ruler of Thebes"—and recognizing its importance, he called the city "Southern Heliopolis, the first great (seat) of Re (or) the Disc." Third, Amenhotep IV did not yet destroy temples to the other gods and he even continued his father's construction projects at Karnak's Precinct of Amun-Re. He decorated the walls of the precinct's Third Pylon with images of himself worshipping Ra-Horakhty, portrayed in the god's traditional form of a falcon-headed man.


title: Akhenaten

text: Artistic depictions continued unchanged early in Amenhotep IV's reign. Tombs built or completed in the first few years after he took the throne, such as those of Kheruef, Ramose, and Parennefer, show the pharaoh in the traditional artistic style. In Ramose's tomb, Amenhotep IV appears on the west wall, seated on a throne, with Ramose appearing before the pharaoh. On the other side of the doorway, Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti are shown in the window of appearances, with the Aten depicted as the sun disc. In Parennefer's tomb, Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti are seated on a throne with the sun disc depicted over the pharaoh and his queen.


title: Akhenaten

text: While continuing the worship of other gods, Amenhotep IV's initial building program sought to build new places of worship to the Aten. He ordered the construction of temples or shrines to the Aten in several cities across the country, such as Bubastis, Tell el-Borg, Heliopolis, Memphis, Nekhen, Kawa, and Kerma. He also ordered the construction of a large temple complex dedicated to the Aten at Karnak in Thebes, northeast of the parts of the Karnak complex dedicated to Amun. The Aten temple complex, collectively known as the Per Aten ("House of the Aten"), consisted of several temples whose names survive: the Gempaaten ("The Aten is found in the estate of the Aten"), the Hwt Benben ("House or Temple of the Benben"), the Rud-Menu ("Enduring of monuments for Aten forever"), the Teni-Menu ("Exalted are the monuments of the Aten forever"), and the Sekhen Aten ("booth of Aten").


title: Akhenaten

text: Around regnal year two or three, Amenhotep IV organized a Sed festival. Sed festivals were ritual rejuvenations of an aging pharaoh, which usually took place for the first time around the thirtieth year of a pharaoh's reign and every three or so years thereafter. Egyptologists only speculate as to why Amenhotep IV organized a Sed festival when he was likely still in his early twenties. Some historians see it as evidence for Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV's coregency, and believed that Amenhotep IV's Sed festival coincided with one of his father's celebrations. Others speculate that Amenhotep IV chose to hold his festival three years after his father's death, aiming to proclaim his rule a continuation of his father's reign. Yet others believe that the festival was held to honor the Aten on whose behalf the pharaoh ruled Egypt, or, as Amenhotep III was considered to have become one with the Aten following his death, the Sed festival honored both the pharaoh and the god at the same time. It is also possible that the purpose of the ceremony was to figuratively fill Amenhotep IV with strength before his great enterprise: the introduction of the Aten cult and the founding of the new capital Akhetaten. Regardless of the celebration's aim, Egyptologists believe that during the festivities Amenhotep IV only made offerings to the Aten rather than the many gods and goddesses, as was customary.


title: Akhenaten

text: Among the last documents that refer to Akhenaten as Amenhotep IV are two copies of a letter to the pharaoh from Ipy, the high steward of Memphis. These letters, found in Gurob and informing the pharaoh that the royal estates in Memphis are "in good order" and the temple of Ptah is "prosperous and flourishing," are dated to regnal year five, day nineteen of the growing season's third month. 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 the pharaoh changed his name between the two inscriptions.


title: Akhenaten

text: Amenhotep IV changed his royal titulary to show his devotion to the Aten. No longer would he be known as Amenhotep IV and be associated with the god Amun, but rather he would completely shift his focus to the Aten. Egyptologists debate the exact meaning of Akhenaten, his new personal name. The word "akh" () could have different translations, such as "satisfied," "effective spirit," or "serviceable to," and thus Akhenaten's name could be translated to mean "Aten is satisfied," "Effective spirit of the Aten," or "Serviceable to the Aten," respectively. Gertie Englund and Florence Friedman arrive at the translation "Effective for the Aten" by analyzing contemporary texts and inscriptions, in which Akhenaten often described himself as being "effective for" the sun disc. Englund and Friedman conclude that the frequency with which Akhenaten used this term likely means that his own name meant "Effective for the Aten."


title: Akhenaten

text: Some historians, such as William F. Albright, Edel Elmar, and Gerhard Fecht, propose that Akhenaten's name is misspelled and mispronounced. These historians believe "Aten" should rather be "Jāti," thus rendering the pharaoh's name Akhenjāti or Aḫanjāti (pronounced ), as it could have been pronounced in Ancient Egypt.


title: Akhenaten

text: Around the same time he changed his royal titulary, on the thirteenth day of the growing season's fourth month, Akhenaten decreed that a new capital city be built: Akhetaten (, meaning "Horizon of the Aten"), better known today as Amarna. The events Egyptologists know the most about during Akhenaten's life are connected with founding Akhetaten, as several so-called boundary stelae were found around the city to mark its boundary. 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. Additionally, the site had previously been uninhabited. According to inscriptions on one boundary stela, the site was appropriate for Aten's city for "not being the property of a god, nor being the property of a goddess, nor being the property of a ruler, nor being the property of a female ruler, nor being the property of any people able to lay claim to it."


title: Akhenaten

text: Historians do not know for certain why Akhenaten established a new capital and left Thebes, the old capital. The boundary stelae detailing Akhetaten's founding is damaged where it likely explained the pharaoh's motives for the move. Surviving parts claim what happened to Akhenaten was "worse than those that I heard" previously in his reign and worse than those "heard by any kings who assumed the White Crown," and alludes to "offensive" speech against the Aten. Egyptologists believe that Akhenaten could be referring to conflict with the priesthood and followers of Amun, the patron god of Thebes. The great temples of Amun, such as Karnak, were all located in Thebes and the priests there achieved significant power earlier in the Eighteenth Dynasty, especially under Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, thanks to pharaohs offering large amounts of Egypt's growing wealth to the cult of Amun; historians, such as Donald B. Redford, therefore posited that by moving to a new capital, Akhenaten may have been trying to break with Amun's priests and the god.


title: Akhenaten

text: Akhetaten was a planned city with the Great Temple of the Aten, Small Aten Temple, royal residences, records office, and government buildings in the city center. Some of these buildings, such as the Aten temples, were ordered to be built by Akhenaten on the boundary stela decreeing the city's founding.


title: Akhenaten

text: The city was built quickly, thanks to a new construction method that used substantially smaller building blocks than under previous pharaohs. These blocks, called talatats, measured by by 1 ancient Egyptian cubits (), and because of the smaller weight and standardized size, using them during constructions was more efficient than using heavy building blocks of varying sizes. By regnal year eight, Akhetaten reached a state where it could be occupied by the royal family. Only his most loyal subjects followed Akhenaten and his family to the new city. While the city continued to be built, in years five through eight, construction work began to stop in Thebes. The Theban Aten temples that had begun were abandoned, and a village of those working on Valley of the Kings tombs was relocated to the workers' village at Akhetaten. However, construction work continued in the rest of the country, as larger cult centers, such as Heliopolis and Memphis, also had temples built for Aten.


title: Akhenaten

text: The Amarna letters have provided important evidence about Akhenaten's reign and foreign policy. The letters are a cache of 382 diplomatic texts and literary and educational materials discovered between 1887 and 1979, and named after Amarna, the modern name for Akhenaten's capital Akhetaten. The diplomatic correspondence comprises clay tablet messages between Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, and Tutankhamun, various subjects through Egyptian military outposts, rulers of vassal states, and the foreign rulers of Babylonia, Assyria, Syria, Canaan, Alashiya, Arzawa, Mitanni, and the Hittites.


title: Akhenaten

text: The Amarna letters portray the international situation in the Eastern Mediterranean that Akhenaten inherited from his predecessors. In the 200 years preceding Akhenaten's reign, following the expulsion of the Hyksos from Lower Egypt at the end of the Second Intermediate Period, the kingdom's influence and military might increased greatly. Egypt's power reached new heights under Thutmose III, who ruled approximately 100 years before Akhenaten and led several successful military campaigns into Nubia and Syria. Egypt's expansion led to confrontation with the Mitanni, but this rivalry ended with the two nations becoming allies. Slowly, however, Egypt's power started to wane. Amenhotep III aimed to maintain the balance of power through marriages—such as his marriage to Tadukhipa, daughter of the Mitanni king Tushratta—and vassal states. Under Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, Egypt was unable or unwilling to oppose the rise of the Hittites around Syria. The pharaohs seemed to eschew military confrontation at a time when the balance of power between Egypt's neighbors and rivals was shifting, and the Hittites, a confrontational state, overtook the Mitanni in influence.


title: Akhenaten

text: Early in his reign, Akhenaten was evidently concerned about the expanding power of the Hittite Empire under Šuppiluliuma I. A successful Hittite attack on Mitanni and its ruler Tushratta would have disrupted the entire international balance of power in the Ancient Middle East at a time when Egypt had made peace with Mitanni; this would cause some of Egypt's vassals to switch their allegiances to the Hittites, as time would prove. A group of Egypt's allies who attempted to rebel against the Hittites were captured, and wrote letters begging Akhenaten for troops, but he did not respond to most of their pleas. Evidence suggests that the troubles on the northern frontier led to difficulties in Canaan, particularly in a struggle for power between Labaya of Shechem and Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem, which required the pharaoh to intervene in the area by dispatching Medjay troops northwards. Akhenaten pointedly refused to save his vassal Rib-Hadda of Byblos—whose kingdom was being besieged by the expanding state of Amurru under Abdi-Ashirta and later Aziru, son of Abdi-Ashirta—despite Rib-Hadda's numerous pleas for help from the pharaoh. Rib-Hadda wrote a total of 60 letters to Akhenaten pleading for aid from 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. What Rib-Hadda did not comprehend was that the Egyptian king would not organize and dispatch an entire army north just to preserve the political status quo of several minor city states on the fringes of Egypt's Asiatic Empire. 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. When Rib-Hadda appealed in vain for aid from Akhenaten and then turned to Aziru, his sworn enemy, to place him back on the throne of his city, Aziru promptly had him dispatched to the king of Sidon, where Rib-Hadda was almost certainly executed.


title: Akhenaten

text: In a view discounted by the 21st century, several Egyptologists in the late 19th and 20th centuries interpreted the Amarna letters to mean that Akhenaten was a pacifist who neglected foreign policy and Egypt's foreign territories in favor of his internal reforms. For example, Henry Hall believed Akhenaten "succeeded by his obstinate doctrinaire love of peace in causing far more misery in his world than half a dozen elderly militarists could have done," while James Henry Breasted said Akhenaten "was not fit to cope with a situation demanding an aggressive man of affairs and a skilled military leader." Others noted that the Amarna letters counter the conventional view that Akhenaten neglected Egypt's foreign territories in favour of his internal reforms. For instance, 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." Indeed, several letters from Egyptian vassals notified the pharaoh that they have followed his instructions, implying that the pharaoh sent such instructions. The Amarna letters also show that vassal states were told repeatedly to expect the arrival of the Egyptian military on their lands, and provide evidence that these troops were dispatched and arrived at their destination. Dozens of letters detail that Akhenaten—and Amenhotep III—sent Egyptian and Nubian troops, armies, archers, chariots, horses, and ships.


title: Akhenaten

text: Only one military campaign is known for certain under Akhenaten's reign. In his second or twelfth year, Akhenaten ordered his Viceroy of Kush Tuthmose to lead a military expedition to quell a rebellion and raids on settlements on the Nile by Nubian nomadic tribes. The victory was commemorated on two stelae, one discovered at Amada and another at Buhen. Egyptologists differ on the size of the campaign: Wolfgang Helck considered it a small-scale police operation, while Alan Schulman considered it a "war of major proportions."


title: Akhenaten

text: Other Egyptologists suggested that Akhenaten could have waged war in Syria or the Levant, possibly against the Hittites. Cyril Aldred, based on Amarna letters describing Egyptian troop movements, proposed that Akhenaten launched an unsuccessful war around the city of Gezer, while Marc Gabolde argued for an unsuccessful campaign around Kadesh. Either of these could be the campaign referred to on Tutankhamun's Restoration Stela: "if an army was sent to Djahy [southern Canaan and Syria] to broaden the boundaries of Egypt, no success of their cause came to pass." John Coleman Darnell and Colleen Manassa also argued that Akhenaten fought with the Hittites for control of Kadesh, but was unsuccessful; the city was not recaptured until 60–70 years later, under Seti I.


title: Akhenaten

text: Overall, archeological evidence suggests that Akhenaten paid close attention to the affairs of Egyptian vassals in Canaan and Syria, though primarily not through letters such as those found at Amarna but through reports from government officials and agents. Akhenaten managed to preserve Egypt's control over the core of its Near Eastern Empire (which consisted of present-day Israel as well as the Phoenician coast) while avoiding conflict with the increasingly powerful and aggressive Hittite Empire of Šuppiluliuma I, which overtook the Mitanni as the dominant power in the northern part of the region. Only the Egyptian border province of Amurru in Syria around the Orontes River was lost to the Hittites when its ruler Aziru defected to the Hittites; ordered by Akhenaten to come to Egypt, Aziru was released after promising to stay loyal to the pharaoh, nonetheless turning to the Hittites soon after his release.


title: Akhenaten

text: Egyptologists know little about the last five years of Akhenaten's reign, beginning in These years are poorly attested and only a few pieces of contemporary evidence survive; the lack of clarity makes reconstructing the latter part of the pharaoh's reign "a daunting task" and a controversial and contested topic of discussion among Egyptologists. Among the newest pieces of evidence is an inscription discovered in 2012 at a limestone quarry in Deir el-Bersha, just north of Akhetaten, from the pharaoh's sixteenth regnal year. The text refers to a building project in Amarna and establishes that Akhenaten and Nefertiti were still a royal couple just a year before Akhenaten's death. The inscription is dated to Year 16, month 3 of Akhet, day 15 of the reign of Akhenaten.


title: Akhenaten

text: Before the 2012 discovery of the Deir el-Bersha inscription, the last known fixed-date event in Akhenaten's reign was a royal reception in regnal year twelve, in which the pharaoh and the royal family received tributes and offerings from allied countries and vassal states at Akhetaten. Inscriptions show tributes from Nubia, the Land of Punt, Syria, the Kingdom of Hattusa, the islands in the Mediterranean Sea, and Libya. Egyptologists, such as Aidan Dodson, consider this year twelve celebration to be the zenith of Akhenaten's reign. Thanks to reliefs in the tomb of courtier Meryre II, historians know that the royal family, Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and their six daughters, were present at the royal reception in full. However, historians are uncertain about the reasons for the reception. Possibilities include the celebration of the marriage of future pharaoh Ay to Tey, celebration of Akhenaten's twelve years on the throne, the summons of king Aziru of Amurru to Egypt, a military victory at Sumur in the Levant, a successful military campaign in Nubia, Nefertiti's ascendancy to the throne as coregent, or the completion of the new capital city Akhetaten.


title: Akhenaten

text: Following year twelve, Donald B. Redford and other Egyptologists proposed that Egypt was struck by an epidemic, most likely a plague. Contemporary evidence suggests that a plague ravaged through the Middle East around this time, and ambassadors and delegations arriving to Akhenaten's year twelve reception might have brought the disease to Egypt. Alternatively, letters from the Hattians might suggest that the epidemic originated in Egypt and was carried throughout the Middle East by Egyptian prisoners of war. Regardless of its origin, the epidemic might account for several deaths in the royal family that occurred in the last five years of Akhenaten's reign, including those of his daughters Meketaten, Neferneferure, and Setepenre.


title: Akhenaten

text: Akhenaten could have ruled together with Smenkhkare and Nefertiti for several years before his death. Based on depictions and artifacts from the tombs of Meryre II and Tutankhamun, Smenkhkare could have been Akhenaten's coregent by regnal year thirteen or fourteen, but died a year or two later. Nefertiti might not have assumed the role of coregent until after year sixteen, when a stela still mentions her as Akhenaten's Great Royal Wife. While Nefertiti's familial relationship with Akhenaten is known, whether Akhenaten and Smenkhkare were related by blood is unclear. Smenkhkare could have been Akhenaten's son or brother, as the son of Amenhotep III with Tiye or Sitamun. Archaeological evidence makes it clear, however, that Smenkhkare was married to Meritaten, Akhenaten's eldest daughter. For another, the so-called Coregency Stela, found in a tomb at Akhetaten, might show queen Nefertiti as Akhenaten's coregent, but this is uncertain as the stela was recarved to show the names of Ankhesenpaaten and Neferneferuaten. Egyptologist Aidan Dodson proposed that both Smenkhkare and Neferiti were Akhenaten's coregents to ensure the Amarna family's continued rule when Egypt was confronted with an epidemic. Dodson suggested that the two were chosen to rule as Tutankhaten's coregent in case Akhenaten died and Tutankhaten took the throne at a young age, or rule in Tutankhaten's stead if the prince also died in the epidemic.


title: Akhenaten

text: Akhenaten died after seventeen years of rule and was initially buried in a tomb in the Royal Wadi east of Akhetaten. The order to construct the tomb and to bury the pharaoh there was commemorated on one of the boundary stela delineating the capital's borders: "Let a tomb be made for me in the eastern mountain [of Akhetaten]. Let my burial be made in it, in the millions of jubilees which the Aten, my father, decreed for me." In the years following the burial, Akhenaten's sarcophagus was destroyed and left in the Akhetaten necropolis; reconstructed in the 20th century, it is in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo as of 2019. Despite leaving the sarcophagus behind, Akhenaten's mummy was removed from the royal tombs after Tutankhamun abandoned Akhetaten and returned to Thebes. It was most likely moved to tomb KV55 in Valley of the Kings near Thebes. This tomb was later desecrated, likely during the Ramesside period.


title: Akhenaten

text: Whether Smenkhkare also enjoyed a brief independent reign after Akhenaten is unclear. If Smenkhkare outlived Akhenaten, and became sole pharaoh, he likely ruled Egypt for less than a year. The next successor was Nefertiti or Meritaten ruling as Neferneferuaten, reigning in Egypt for about two years. She was, in turn, probably succeeded by Tutankhaten, with the country being administered by the vizier and future pharaoh Ay.


title: Akhenaten

text: While Akhenaten—along with Smenkhkare—was most likely reburied in tomb KV55, the identification of the mummy found in that tomb as Akhenaten remains controversial to this day. The mummy has repeatedly been examined since its discovery in 1907. Most recently, Egyptologist Zahi Hawass led a team of researchers to examine the mummy using medical and DNA analysis, with the results published in 2010. In releasing their test results, Hawass's team identified the mummy as the father of Tutankhamun and thus "most probably" Akhenaten. However, the study's validity has since been called into question. For instance, the discussion of the study results does not discuss that Tutankhamun's father and the father's siblings would share some genetic markers; if Tutankhamun's father was Akhenaten, the DNA results could indicate that the mummy is a brother of Akhenaten, possibly Smenkhkare.


title: Akhenaten

text: With Akhenaten's death, the Aten cult he had founded fell out of favor: at first gradually, and then with decisive finality. Tutankhaten changed his name to Tutankhamun in Year 2 of his reign () and abandoned the city of Akhetaten. Their successors then attempted to erase Akhenaten and his family from the historical record. During the reign of Horemheb, the last pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty and the first pharaoh after Akhenaten who was not related to Akhenaten's family, Egyptians started to destroy temples to the Aten and reuse the building blocks in new construction projects, including in temples for the newly restored god Amun. Horemheb's successor continued in this effort. Seti I restored monuments to Amun and had the god's name re-carved on inscriptions where it was removed by Akhenaten. Seti I also ordered that Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Neferneferuaten, Tutankhamun, and Ay be excised from official lists of pharaohs to make it appear that Amenhotep III was immediately succeeded by Horemheb. Under the Ramessides, who succeeded Seti I, Akhetaten was gradually destroyed and the building material reused across the country, such as in constructions at Hermopolis. The negative attitudes toward Akhenaten were illustrated by, for example, inscriptions in the tomb of scribe Mose (or Mes), where Akhenaten's reign is referred to as "the time of the enemy of Akhet-Aten."


title: Akhenaten

text: Some Egyptologists, such as Jacobus van Dijk and Jan Assmann, believe that Akhenaten's reign and the Amarna period started a gradual decline in the Egyptian government's power and the pharaoh's standing in Egyptian's society and religious life. Akhenaten's religious reforms subverted the relationship ordinary Egyptians had with their gods and their pharaoh, as well as the role the pharaoh played in the relationship between the people and the gods. Before the Amarna period, the pharaoh was the representative of the gods on Earth, the son of the god Ra, and the living incarnation of the god Horus, and maintained the divine order through rituals and offerings and by sustaining the temples of the gods. Additionally, even though the pharaoh oversaw all religious activity, Egyptians could access their gods through regular public holidays, festivals, and processions. This led to a seemingly close connection between people and the gods, especially the patron deity of their respective towns and cities. Akhenaten, however, banned the worship of gods beside the Aten, including through festivals. He also declared himself to be the only one who could worship the Aten, and required that all religious devotion previously exhibited toward the gods be directed toward himself. After the Amarna period, during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties— following Akhenaten's death—the relationship between the people, the pharaoh, and the gods did not simply revert to pre-Amarna practices and beliefs. The worship of all gods returned, but the relationship between the gods and the worshipers became more direct and personal, circumventing the pharaoh. Rather than acting through the pharaoh, Egyptians started to believe that the gods intervened directly in their lives, protecting the pious and punishing criminals. The gods replaced the pharaoh as their own representatives on Earth. The god Amun once again became king among all gods. According to van Dijk, "the king was no longer a god, but god himself had become king. Once Amun had been recognized as the true king, the political power of the earthly rulers could be reduced to a minimum." Consequently, the influence and power of the Amun priesthood continued to grow until the Twenty-first Dynasty, , by which time the High Priests of Amun effectively became rulers over parts of Egypt.


title: Akhenaten

text: Akhenaten's reforms also had a longer-term impact on Ancient Egyptian language and hastened the spread of the spoken Late Egyptian language in official writings and speeches. Spoken and written Egyptian diverged early on in Egyptian history and stayed different over time. During the Amarna period, however, royal and religious texts and inscriptions, including the boundary stelae at Akhetaten or the Amarna letters, started to regularly include more vernacular linguistic elements, such as the definite article or a new possessive form. Even though they continued to diverge, these changes brought the spoken and written language closer to one another more systematically than under previous pharaohs of the New Kingdom. While Akhenaten's successors attempted to erase his religious, artistic, and even linguistic changes from history, the new linguistic elements remained a more common part of official texts following the Amarna years, starting with the Nineteenth Dynasty.


title: Akhenaten

text: Egyptians worshipped a sun god under several names, and solar worship had been growing in popularity even before Akhenaten, especially during the Eighteenth Dynasty and the reign of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten's father. During the New Kingdom, the pharaoh started to be associated with the sun disc; for example, one inscription called the pharaoh Hatshepsut the "female Re shining like the Disc," while Amenhotep III was described as "he who rises over every foreign land, Nebmare, the dazzling disc." During the Eighteenth Dynasty, a religious hymn to the sun also appeared and became popular among Egyptians. However, Egyptologists question whether there is a causal relationship between the cult of the sun disc before Akhenaten and Akhenaten's religious policies.


title: Akhenaten

text: The implementation of Atenism can be traced through gradual changes in the Aten's iconography, and Egyptologist Donald B. Redford divided its development into three stages—earliest, intermediate, and final—in his studies of Akhenaten and Atenism. The earliest stage was associated with a growing number of depictions of the sun disc, though the disc is still seen resting on the head of the falcon-headed sun god Ra-Horakhty, as the god was traditionally represented. The god was only "unique but not exclusive." The intermediate stage was marked by the elevation of the Aten above other gods and the appearance of cartouches around his inscribed name—cartouches traditionally indicating that the enclosed text is a royal name. The final stage had the Aten represented as a sun disc with sunrays like long arms terminating in human hands and the introduction of a new epithet for the god: "the great living Disc which is in jubilee, lord of heaven and earth."


title: Akhenaten

text: In the early years of his reign, Amenhotep IV lived at Thebes, the old capital city, and permitted worship of Egypt's traditional deities to continue. However, some signs already pointed to the growing importance of the Aten. For example, inscriptions in the Theban tomb of Parennefer from the early rule of Amenhotep IV state that "one measures the payments to every (other) god with a level measure, but for the Aten one measures so that it overflows," indicating a more favorable attitude to the cult of Aten than the other gods. Additionally, near the Temple of Karnak, Amun-Ra's great cult center, Amenhotep IV erected several massive buildings including temples to the Aten. The new Aten temples had no roof and the god was thus worshipped in the sunlight, under the open sky, rather than in dark temple enclosures as had been the previous custom. The Theban buildings were later dismantled by his successors and used as infill for new constructions in the Temple of Karnak; when they were later dismantled by archaeologists, some 36,000 decorated blocks from the original Aten building here were revealed that preserve many elements of the original relief scenes and inscriptions.


title: Akhenaten

text: One of the most important turning points in the early reign of Amenhotep IV is a speech given by the pharaoh at the beginning of his second regnal year. A copy of the speech survives on one of the pylons at the Karnak Temple Complex near Thebes. Speaking to the royal court, scribes or the people, Amenhotep IV said that the gods were ineffective and had ceased their movements, and that their temples had collapsed. The pharaoh contrasted this with the only remaining god, the sun disc Aten, who continued to move and exist forever. Some Egyptologists, such as Donald B. Redford, compared this speech to a proclamation or manifesto, which foreshadowed and explained the pharaoh's later religious reforms centered around the Aten. In his speech, Akhenaten said:


title: Akhenaten

text: The temples of the gods fallen to ruin, their bodies do not endure. Since the time of the ancestors, it is the wise man that knows these things. Behold, I, the king, am speaking so that I might inform you concerning the appearances of the gods. I know their temples, and I am versed in the writings, specifically, the inventory of their primeval bodies. And I have watched as they [the gods] have ceased their appearances, one after the other. All of them have stopped, except the god who gave birth to himself. And no one knows the mystery of how he performs his tasks. This god goes where he pleases and no one else knows his going. I approach him, the things which he has made. How exalted they are.


title: Akhenaten

text: In Year Five of his reign, Amenhotep IV took decisive steps to establish the Aten as the sole god of Egypt. The pharaoh "disbanded the priesthoods of all the other gods... and diverted the income from these [other] cults to support the Aten." To emphasize his complete allegiance to the Aten, the king officially changed his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten (, meaning "Effective for the Aten"). Meanwhile, the Aten was becoming a king itself. Artists started to depict him with the trappings of pharaohs, placing his name in cartouches—a rare, but not unique occurrence, as the names of Ra-Horakhty and Amun-Ra had also been found enclosed in cartouches—and wearing a uraeus, a symbol of kingship. The Aten may also have been the subject of Akhenaten's royal Sed festival early in the pharaoh's reign. With Aten becoming a sole deity, Akhenaten started to proclaim himself as the only intermediary between Aten and his people, and the subject of their personal worship and attention—a feature not unheard of in Egyptian history, with Fifth Dynasty pharaohs such as Nyuserre Ini proclaiming to be sole intermediaries between the people and the gods Osiris and Ra.


title: Akhenaten

text: By Year Nine of his reign, Akhenaten declared that Aten was not merely the supreme god, but the only worshipable god. He ordered the defacing of Amun's temples throughout Egypt and, in a number of instances, inscriptions of the plural 'gods' were also removed. This emphasized the changes encouraged by the new regime, which included a ban on images, with the exception of a rayed solar disc, in which the rays appear to represent the unseen spirit of Aten, who by then was evidently considered not merely a sun god, but rather a universal deity. All life on Earth depended on the Aten and the visible sunlight. Representations of the Aten were always accompanied with a sort of hieroglyphic footnote, stating that the representation of the sun as all-encompassing creator was to be taken as just that: a representation of something that, by its very nature as something transcending creation, cannot be fully or adequately represented by any one part of that creation. Aten's name was also written differently starting as early as Year Eight or as late as Year Fourteen, according to some historians. From "Living Re-Horakhty, who rejoices in the horizon in his name Shu-Re who is in Aten," the god's name changed to "Living Re, ruler of the horizon, who rejoices in his name of Re the father who has returned as Aten," removing the Aten's connection to Re-Horakhty and Shu, two other solar deities. The Aten thus became an amalgamation that incorporated the attributes and beliefs around Re-Horakhty, universal sun god, and Shu, god of the sky and manifestation of the sunlight.


title: Akhenaten

text: Akhenaten's Atenist beliefs are best distilled in the Great Hymn to the Aten. The hymn was discovered in the tomb of Ay, one of Akhenaten's successors, though Egyptologists believe that it could have been composed by Akhenaten himself. The hymn celebrates the sun and daylight and recounts the dangers that abound when the sun sets. It tells of the Aten as a sole god and the creator of all life, who recreates life every day at sunrise, and on whom everything on Earth depends, including the natural world, people's lives, and even trade and commerce. In one passage, the hymn declares: "O Sole God beside whom there is none! You made the earth as you wished, you alone." The hymn also states that Akhenaten is the only intermediary between the god and Egyptians, and the only one who can understand the Aten: "You are in my heart, and there is none who knows you except your son."


title: Akhenaten

text: Some debate has focused on the extent to which Akhenaten forced his religious reforms on his people. Certainly, as time drew on, he revised the names of the Aten, and other religious language, to increasingly exclude references to other gods; at some point, also, he embarked on the wide-scale erasure of traditional gods' names, especially those of Amun. Some of his court changed their names to remove them from the patronage of other gods and place them under that of Aten (or Ra, with whom Akhenaten equated the Aten). Yet, even at Amarna itself, some courtiers kept such names as Ahmose ("child of the moon god", the owner of tomb 3), and the sculptor's workshop where the famous Nefertiti Bust and other works of royal portraiture were found is associated with an artist known to have been called Thutmose ("child of Thoth"). An overwhelmingly large number of faience amulets at Amarna also show that talismans of the household-and-childbirth gods Bes and Taweret, the eye of Horus, and amulets of other traditional deities, were openly worn by its citizens. Indeed, a cache of royal jewelry found buried near the Amarna royal tombs (now in the National Museum of Scotland) includes a finger ring referring to Mut, the wife of Amun. Such evidence suggests that though Akhenaten shifted funding away from traditional temples, his policies were fairly tolerant until some point, perhaps a particular event as yet unknown, toward the end of the reign.


title: Akhenaten

text: Archaeological discoveries at Akhetaten show that many ordinary residents of this city chose to gouge or chisel out all references to the god Amun on even minor personal items that they owned, such as commemorative scarabs or make-up pots, perhaps for fear of being accused of having Amunist sympathies. References to Amenhotep III, Akhenaten's father, were partly erased since they contained the traditional Amun form of his name: Nebmaatre Amunhotep.


title: Akhenaten

text: Following Akhenaten's death, Egypt gradually returned to its traditional polytheistic religion, partly because of how closely associated the Aten became with Akhenaten. Atenism likely stayed dominant through the reigns of Akhenaten's immediate successors, Smenkhkare and Neferneferuaten, as well as early in the reign of Tutankhaten. For some years the worship of Aten and a resurgent worship of Amun coexisted.


title: Akhenaten

text: Over time, however, Akhenaten's successors, starting with Tutankhaten, took steps to distance themselves from Atenism. Tutankhaten and his wife Ankhesenpaaten dropped the Aten from their names and changed them to Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun, respectively. Amun was restored as the supreme deity. Tutankhamun reestablished the temples of the other gods, as the pharaoh propagated on his Restoration Stela: "He reorganized this land, restoring its customs to those of the time of Re. ... He renewed the gods' mansions and fashioned all their images. ... He raised up their temples and created their statues. ... 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." Additionally, Tutankhamun's building projects at Thebes and Karnak used talatat's from Akhenaten's buildings, which implies that Tutankhamun might have started to demolish temples dedicated to the Aten. Aten temples continued to be torn down under Ay and Horemheb, Tutankhamun's successors and the last pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Horemheb might also have ordered the demolition of Akhetaten, Akhenaten's capital city. Further underlining the break with Aten worship, Horemheb claimed to have been chosen to rule by the god Horus. Finally, Seti I, the second pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty, ordered the name of Amun to be restored on inscriptions where it had been removed or replaced by Aten.


title: Akhenaten

text: Styles of art that flourished during the reigns of Akhenaten and his immediate successors, known as Amarna art, are markedly different from the traditional art of ancient Egypt. Representations are more realistic, expressionistic, and naturalistic, especially in depictions of animals, plants and people, and convey more action and movement for both non-royal and royal individuals than the traditionally static representations. In traditional art, a pharaoh's divine nature was expressed by repose, even immobility.


title: Akhenaten

text: The portrayals of Akhenaten himself greatly differ from the depictions of other pharaohs. Traditionally, the portrayal of pharaohs—and the Egyptian ruling class—was idealized, and they were shown in "stereotypically 'beautiful' fashion" as youthful and athletic. However, Akhenaten's portrayals are unconventional and "unflattering" with a sagging stomach; broad hips; thin legs; thick thighs; large, "almost feminine breasts;" a thin, "exaggeratedly long face;" and thick lips.


title: Akhenaten

text: Based on Akhenaten's and his family's unusual artistic representations, including potential depictions of gynecomastia and androgyny, some have argued that the pharaoh and his family have either suffered from aromatase excess syndrome and sagittal craniosynostosis syndrome, or Antley–Bixler syndrome. In 2010, results published from genetic studies on Akhenaten's purported mummy did not find signs of gynecomastia or Antley-Bixler syndrome, although these results have since been questioned.


title: Akhenaten

text: Arguing instead for a symbolic interpretation, Dominic Montserrat in "Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt" states that "there is now a broad consensus among Egyptologists that the exaggerated forms of Akhenaten's physical portrayal... are not to be read literally". Because the god Aten was referred to as "the mother and father of all humankind," Montserrat and others suggest that Akhenaten was made to look androgynous in artwork as a symbol of the androgyny of the Aten. This required "a symbolic gathering of all the attributes of the creator god into the physical body of the king himself", which will "display on earth the Aten's multiple life-giving functions". Akhenaten claimed the title "The Unique One of Re", and he may have directed his artists to contrast him with the common people through a radical departure from the idealized traditional pharaoh image.


title: Akhenaten

text: Depictions of other members of the court, especially members of the royal family, are also exaggerated, stylized, and overall different from traditional art. Significantly, and for the only time in the history of Egyptian royal art, the pharaoh's family life is depicted: the royal family is shown mid-action in relaxed, casual, and intimate situations, taking part in decidedly naturalistic activities, showing affection for each other, such as holding hands and kissing.


title: Akhenaten

text: Nefertiti also appears, both beside the king and alone, or with her daughters, in actions usually reserved for a pharaoh, such as "smiting the enemy," a traditional depiction of male pharaohs. This suggests that she enjoyed unusual status for a queen. Early artistic representations of her tend to be indistinguishable from her husband's except by her regalia, but soon after the move to the new capital, Nefertiti begins to be depicted with features specific to her. Questions remain whether the beauty of Nefertiti is portraiture or idealism.


title: Akhenaten

text: Akhenaten's status as a religious revolutionary has led to much speculation, ranging from scholarly hypotheses to non-academic fringe theories. Although some believe the religion he introduced was mostly monotheistic, many others see Akhenaten as a practitioner of an Aten monolatry, as he did not actively deny the existence of other gods; he simply refrained from worshiping any but the Aten.


title: Akhenaten

text: The idea that Akhenaten was the pioneer of a monotheistic religion that later became Judaism has been considered by various scholars. One of the first to mention this was Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in his book "Moses and Monotheism". Basing his arguments on his belief that the Exodus story was historical, Freud argued that Moses had been an Atenist priest who was forced to leave Egypt with his followers after Akhenaten's death. Freud argued that Akhenaten was striving to promote monotheism, something that the biblical Moses was able to achieve. Following the publication of his book, the concept entered popular consciousness and serious research.


title: Akhenaten

text: Freud commented on the connection between Adonai, the Egyptian Aten and the Syrian divine name of Adonis as stemming from a common root; in this he was following the argument of Egyptologist Arthur Weigall. Jan Assmann's opinion is that 'Aten' and 'Adonai' are not linguistically related.


title: Akhenaten

text: There are strong similarities between Akhenaten's Great Hymn to the Aten and the Biblical Psalm 104, but there is debate as to relationship implied by this similarity.


title: Akhenaten

text: Others have likened some aspects of Akhenaten's relationship with the Aten to the relationship, in Christian tradition, between Jesus Christ and God, particularly interpretations that emphasize a more monotheistic interpretation of Atenism than a henotheistic one. Donald B. Redford has noted that some have viewed Akhenaten as a harbinger of Jesus. "After all, Akhenaten did call himself the son of the sole god: 'Thine only son that came forth from thy body'." James Henry Breasted likened him to Jesus, Arthur Weigall saw him as a failed precursor of Christ and Thomas Mann saw him "as right on the way and yet not the right one for the way".


title: Akhenaten

text: Although scholars like Brian Fagan (2015) and Robert Alter (2018) have re-opened the debate, in 1997, Redford concluded:


title: Akhenaten

text: Before much of the archaeological evidence from Thebes and from Tell el-Amarna became available, wishful thinking sometimes turned Akhenaten into a humane teacher of the true God, a mentor of Moses, a christlike figure, a philosopher before his time. But these imaginary creatures are now fading away as the historical reality gradually emerges. There is little or no evidence to support the notion that Akhenaten was a progenitor of the full-blown monotheism that we find in the Bible. The monotheism of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament had its own separate development—one that began more than half a millennium after the pharaoh's death.


title: Akhenaten

text: The unconventional portrayals of Akhenaten—different from the traditional athletic norm in the portrayal of pharaohs—have led Egyptologists in the 19th and 20th centuries to suppose that Akhenaten suffered some kind of genetic abnormality. Various illnesses have been put forward, with Frölich's syndrome or Marfan syndrome being mentioned most commonly.


title: Akhenaten

text: Cyril Aldred, following up earlier arguments of Grafton Elliot Smith and James Strachey, suggested that Akhenaten may have suffered from Frölich's syndrome on the basis of his long jaw and his feminine appearance. However, this is unlikely, because this disorder results in sterility and Akhenaten is known to have fathered numerous children. His children are repeatedly portrayed through years of archaeological and iconographic evidence.


title: Akhenaten

text: Burridge suggested that Akhenaten may have suffered from Marfan syndrome, which, unlike Frölich's, does not result in mental impairment or sterility. Marfan sufferers tend towards tallness, with a long, thin face, elongated skull, overgrown ribs, a funnel or pigeon chest, a high curved or slightly cleft palate, and larger pelvis, with enlarged thighs and spindly calves, symptoms that appear in some depictions of Akhenaten. Marfan syndrome is a dominant characteristic, which means sufferers have a 50% chance of passing it on to their children. However, DNA tests on Tutankhamun in 2010 proved negative for Marfan syndrome.


title: Akhenaten

text: By the early 21st century, most Egyptologists argued that Akhenaten's portrayals are not the results of a genetic or medical condition, but rather should be interpreted as stylized portrayals influenced by Atenism. Akhenaten was made to look androgynous in artwork as a symbol of the androgyny of the Aten.


title: Akhenaten

text: Akhenaten's life, accomplishments, and legacy have been preserved and depicted in many ways, and he has figured in works of both high and popular culture since his rediscovery in the 19th century AD. Akhenaten—alongside Cleopatra and Alexander the Great—is among the most often popularized and fictionalized ancient historical figures.


title: Akhenaten

text: On page, Amarna novels most often take one of two forms. They are either a "Bildungsroman", focusing on Akhenaten's psychological and moral growth as it relates to establishing Atenism and Akhetaten, as well as his struggles against the Theban Amun cult. Alternatively, his literary depictions focus on the aftermath of his reign and religion. A dividing line also exists between depictions of Akhenaten from before the 1920s and since, when more and more archeological discoveries started to provide artists with material evidence about his life and times. Thus, before the 1920s, Akhenaten had appeared as "a ghost, a spectral figure" in art, while since he has become realistic, "material and tangible." Examples of the former include the romance novels "In the Tombs of the Kings" (1910) by Lilian Bagnall—the first appearance by Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti in fiction—and "A Wife Out of Egypt" (1913) and "There Was a King in Egypt" (1918) by Norma Lorimer. Examples of the latter include "Akhnaton King of Egypt" (1924) by Dmitry Merezhkovsky, "Joseph and His Brothers" (1933–1943) by Thomas Mann, "Akhnaton" (1973) by Agatha Christie, and "Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth" (1985) by Naguib Mahfouz. Akhenaten also appears in "The Egyptian" (1945) by Mika Waltari, which was adapted into the movie "The Egyptian" (1953). In this movie, Akhenaten, portrayed by Michael Wilding, appears to represent Jesus Christ and his followers proto-Christians.


title: Akhenaten

text: A sexualized image of Akhenaten, building on early Western interest in the pharaoh's androgynous depictions, perceived potential homosexuality, and identification with Oedipal storytelling, also influenced modern works of art. The two most notable portrayals are "Akenaten" (1975), an unfilmed screenplay by Derek Jarman, and "Akhnaten" (1984), an opera by Philip Glass. Both were influenced by the unproven and scientifically unsupported theories of Immanuel Velikovsky, who equated Oedipus with Akhenaten, although Glass specifically denies his personal belief in Velikovsky's Oedpius theory, or caring about its historical validity, instead being drawn to its potential theatricality.


title: Akhenaten

text: In the 21st century, Akhenaten appeared as an antagonist in comic books and video games. For example, he is the major antagonist in limited comic-book series "" (2003). In this series, Akhenaten is abducted by an alien order in the 14th century BC and reappears on modern Earth seeking to restore his kingdom. He is opposed by essentially all of the other superheroes and supervillains in the Marvel comic book universe and is eventually defeated by Thanos. Additionally, Akhenaten appears as the enemy in the "Assassin's Creed Origins The Curse of the Pharaohs" downloadable content (2017), and must be defeated to remove his curse on Thebes. His afterlife takes the form of 'Aten', a location that draws heavily on the architecture of the city of Amarna.


title: Akhenaten

text: American death metal band Nile depicted Akhenaten's judgement, punishment, and erasure from history at the hands of the pantheon that he replaced with Aten, in the song "Cast Down the Heretic", from their 2005 album Annihilation of the Wicked.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: The Devil's Advocate (marketed as Devil's Advocate) is a 1997 American supernatural horror film directed by Taylor Hackford, written by Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy, and starring Keanu Reeves, Al Pacino, and Charlize Theron. Based on Andrew Neiderman's 1990 novel of the same name, it is about a gifted young Florida lawyer (Reeves) invited to New York City to work for a major firm. As his wife (Theron) becomes haunted by frightening visions, the lawyer slowly begins to realize the owner of the firm (Pacino) is not what he appears to be, and is in fact the Devil.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Pacino's character, Satan, takes the guise of a human lawyer named after the author of "Paradise Lost", John Milton. The story and direction contain allusions to Milton's epic, Dante Alighieri's "Inferno", and the legend of Faust. An adaptation of Neiderman's novel went into a development hell during the 1990s, with Hackford gaining control of the production. Filming took place around New York City and Florida.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: "The Devil's Advocate" received mixed reviews, with critics crediting it for entertainment value and Pacino's performance. It grossed over $153 million in the box office and won the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. It also became the subject of the copyright lawsuit "Hart v. Warner Bros., Inc." for its visual art.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Kevin Lomax is a Gainesville, Florida defense attorney who has never lost a case. While defending schoolteacher Lloyd Gettys against a charge of child molestation, he realizes his client is guilty. Despite this, Kevin destroys the victim's credibility, securing a "not guilty" verdict.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: A New York City law firm asks Kevin to assist a jury selection. After the jury delivers a not guilty verdict, the head of the firm, John Milton, offers Kevin a high-paying job. Kevin accepts, and he and his wife Mary Ann move to Manhattan. He is soon spending most of his time at work, leaving Mary Ann feeling isolated. Kevin's fundamentalist mother, Alice suggests they both return home after an unsettling conversation with Milton. However, Kevin refuses.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: When billionaire Alex Cullen is accused of murdering his wife, his stepson, and a maid, Milton assigns the case to Kevin. This demands more of Kevin's time, further separating him from Mary Ann, and he begins to fantasize about his co-worker, Christabella. Mary Ann begins seeing visions of the partners' wives becoming demonic, and has a nightmare about a baby playing with her removed ovaries. After a doctor declares her infertile, she begs Kevin to return them to Gainesville, but he refuses. Milton suggests Kevin step down from the trial to tend to his wife, but Kevin says that he fears he will resent her for costing him the case.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Eddie Barzoon, the firm's managing partner, is convinced that Kevin is competing for his job after discovering Kevin's name on the firm's charter. be Kevin denies any knowledge of this and Eddie threatens to inform the United States Attorney's office of the firm's activities. Kevin tells Milton about Eddie's threats, but Milton seems to dismiss them; during the conversation, Eddie is beaten to death in Central Park by vagrants with demonic appearances. A U.S. Justice Department agent investigating Milton warns Kevin that his boss is corrupt, and also reveals that Gettys has been arrested for killing a little girl. Moments later, the agent is struck by a car and killed.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: While preparing Melissa Black, Cullen's secretary, to testify about Cullen's alibi, Kevin realizes she is lying and tells Milton he believes Cullen is guilty. Milton offers to back him regardless and Kevin proceeds, winning an acquittal with Black's perjured testimony. Afterwards, Kevin finds Mary Ann covered with a blanket in a nearby church. She claims Milton raped her that day, but Kevin says it is impossible, as he was with Milton in court. Mary Ann drops her blanket, revealing her body covered with cuts and scratches. Assuming she injured herself, Kevin commits her to a mental institution.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Alice, Kevin, and Pam Garrety, his case manager, visit Mary Ann at the institution. After seeing Pam as a demon, Mary Ann hits her, barricades the room and commits suicide. Alice reveals that Milton is Kevin's father, whom she met in New York decades earlier, and her experience with him was traumatic. Kevin leaves the hospital to confront Milton, who admits to raping Mary Ann. Kevin shoots Milton, but the bullets pass through him. Milton reveals himself as Satan, and Kevin blames him for everything that happened. Milton counters that he merely "set the stage", and that Kevin could have left at any time. Kevin realizes he always wanted to win, no matter the cost. Christabella appears, and Milton announces that he wants Kevin and Christabella - Kevin's half-sister - to conceive the Antichrist. Kevin initially appears to acquiesce, but then abruptly shoots himself in the head. Milton's Satanic rage burns Christabella alive, initially revealing his demonic form before turning into a white angel who resembles Kevin.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Suddenly, Kevin finds himself back at the recess of the Gettys trial. He announces that he cannot represent his client despite the threat of disbarment. Kevin's reporter friend Larry offers him a high-profile interview, promising to make him famous. Encouraged by Mary Ann, Kevin agrees. After they leave, Larry transforms into Milton, who declares, "Vanity--definitely my favorite sin."


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: The Devil character's name is a direct homage to John Milton, who wrote "Paradise Lost", quoted by Lomax with the line ""Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n"". Despite this, the thrust of Milton's epic was to rebuke the devil. As a rebel against God, complaining of being perpetually "underestimated", the Milton character, like "Paradise Lost"s Satan, is ""Heav'n running from Heav'n"" with a ""sense of injur'd merit"".


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Professor Eric C. Brown judges the climax, in which Milton attempts to persuade Lomax to have sex with his half-sister to conceive the Antichrist, to be the most "Miltonic", as the sculptures become animated in carnal activities evoking "Paradise Lost"s "Downfall of the Rebel Angels". The tirade Milton gives in this sequence is at times also reminiscent of Satan's lines in "Paradise Lost" Books I and II. In U.S. literary education, Milton's temptation of Lomax in the climax, in which he rationalizes rebellion against God for a "Look, but don't touch" model, has been compared to Satan urging Eve to eat forbidden fruit in "Paradise Lost", Book IX, lines 720–730:


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: In his DVD commentary, Taylor Hackford did not name "Paradise Lost" as an inspiration, instead citing the legend of Faust. An underlying concept of the story is a "Faustian bargain", offered to a character with free will. Philosopher Peter van Inwagen writes Milton referring to free will as a "bitch", when Lomax contemplates selling his soul, moves away from a legalistic definition of "free will" as "uncoerced", into the philosophical realm of its definition.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: As with "Goethe's Faust", the Devil commonly depicted in cinema is associated with lust and temptation. Milton shows Lomax many seductive women, in order to induce his "fall". Sex or rape is usually also the means by which Satan creates the Antichrist, as in Roman Polanski's 1968 film "Rosemary's Baby". In "The Devil's Advocate", someone other than Satan will have sex to conceive the Antichrist, though Milton nevertheless brutally rapes Mary Ann. Incest becomes a way of creating the Antichrist, since the offspring of Satan's son and daughter will inherit much of Satan's genetic makeup.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Dante Alighieri's "Inferno" raised "visual potential" that informed the film. Dantean scholar Amilcare A. Iannucci argues the plot follows the "Divine Comedy" model in beginning with "selva oscura", in Lomax losing his conscience defending a guilty man, and then entering and exploring deeper circles of Hell. Iannucci compares the office building structure to the circles, listing fireplaces where flames are always present; demonic visual phenomena; and water outside Milton's office, analogized to Dante's Satan's icy home, albeit situated at the top of Hell as opposed to the bottom. Free will is also a major theme in the "Divine Comedy", with the film's musings on the concept being similar to Dante's "Purgatorio", 16.82–83 ("if the present world has gone astray, in you is the cause, in you it's to be sought").


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Other religious references are present. In describing New York City as Babylon, Alice Lomax invokes Revelation 18:


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Milton tempting Lomax is possibly also inspired by the Biblical Temptation of Christ. Aside from Milton, other character names have been commented on: Author Kelly J. Wyman matches Mary Ann, the virginal figure who falls victim to Milton, to the Virgin Mary, and adds the literal translation of Christabella is "Beautiful Christ", and that the title refers to the Catholic Church's Devil's advocates and lawyers as advocates; Eric C. Brown finds Barzoon's name and character to be reminiscent of the demon prince Beelzebub. Scholars Miguel A. De La Torre and Albert Hernández observe the vision of Satan as CEO, wearing expensive clothing and engaging in business, had appeared in popular culture before, including the 1942 novel "The Screwtape Letters".


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Andrew Neiderman wrote "The Devil's Advocate" as a novel, and it was published in 1990 by Simon and Schuster. Believing his story could be adapted into a film, Neiderman approached Warner Bros. and claimed to have led his successful sale with the synopsis "It's about a law firm in New York that represents only guilty people, and never loses".


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Various screenplay adaptations of "The Devil's Advocate" had been pitched to U.S. cinema studios, with Joel Schumacher planned to direct it with Brad Pitt as the young lawyer. Schumacher planned a sequence in which Pitt would descend into the New York subway system, which would be modeled on the circles of hell in Dante's "Divine Comedy". With no actor to play Satan, this project collapsed.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: The O.J. Simpson murder trial and its controversial outcome gave new impetus to relaunching the project, with a $60 million budget. Warner hired Taylor Hackford to direct the new attempt. The director embraced the legal drama aspect, theorizing, "The courtroom has become the gladiator arena of the late twentieth century. Following the progress of a sensational trial is a spectator sport".


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Tony Gilroy led much of the rewrite, with supervision by Hackford, who envisioned it as "a modern-day morality play" and "Faustian tale". As the screenplay developed, free will became a theme, in which Milton does not actually cause events. Hackford wanted suggestions that Milton does not kill Barzoon, as he defied his muggers, or United States Attorney Weaver, who arrogantly did not watch for vehicles before stepping onto the road.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: The screenwriters added the plot element that Lomax was Milton's son, and that Milton could produce the Antichrist, neither of which are in the novel. Hackford cited the films "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Omen" as influences, and both had explored the Antichrist mythology. Another change from the novel was converting the book's lesbian client to the male molester Lloyd Gettys, avoiding undertones of homophobia. In an early version of the screenplay, the "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" quotation is given to Milton rather than Lomax.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Al Pacino had previously been offered the Devil role in attempts at adapting Neiderman's novel, but before final rewrites, rejected it on three occasions, for the clichéd nature of the character. Pacino suggested Robert Redford and Sean Connery for the role. Keanu Reeves chose to star in "Devil's Advocate" over "", despite a promised $11 million for the sequel to his 1994 hit "Speed"; according to Reeves' staff, the actor was averse to performing in two consecutive action films after "Chain Reaction" (1996). On "Devil's Advocate", Reeves agreed to a pay cut worth millions of dollars so that the producers could meet Pacino's salary demands. To prepare for the role, Pacino watched the 1941 film "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and observed tips from Walter Huston as Mr. Scratch. He also read Dante's "Inferno" and "Paradise Lost".


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Connie Nielsen, a Danish actress, was selected by Hackford for Christabella, who speaks several languages, with Hackford saying Nielsen already spoke multiple languages. Craig T. Nelson, known for his television work, was cast against type in a villainous role.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Principal photography began in New York in 1996, but struggled by November. Delays were caused by the dismissals of the original cinematographer and assistant directors, while an anonymous source claimed Pacino found Hackford to be conceited and loud. An executive alleged Pacino was typically late to work, though producer Arnold Kopelson said this was not the case. Hackford later said Pacino was professional, even though his status meant he did not need to be.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Production designer Bruno Rubeo was tasked to create Milton's apartment, aiming for a "very loose and very sexy" appearance, "so you can't really tell where it goes". Hackford said on this set, he encouraged Reeves and Pacino to "feel the room" and develop some improvisation. Pacino came up with the idea of dancing to "It Happened in Monterey" by Frank Sinatra, and Hackford immediately adopted the idea.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: When Lomax leaves to meet Milton, he walks through 57th Street in New York, which is abnormally devoid of people or vehicles. It was shot at the actual 57th Street, with the filmmakers having it emptied at 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday. The offices were shot at the Continental Club in Manhattan, and the Continental Plaza, though the water outside Milton's office was added later by computer effects. In constructing the firm sets, Hackford and Rubeo consulted one architect from Japan and one from Italy to craft an "ultra-modern" look, to display Milton's taste. Donald Trump's penthouse in Trump Tower, Fifth Avenue was lent to the production for Alexander Cullen's residence.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: A number of churches and courts hosted production. The interior of New York City's Church of the Heavenly Rest was used for the scene where Theron's character says Milton raped her. The outside of Central Presbyterian Church was photographed for Barzoon's funeral, while Pacino was inside the Manhattan Church of the Most Holy Redeemer for the holy water sequence. For court scenes, New Jersey's Bergen County Court House was employed for production, as were historic courthouses in New York.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: After the completion of the New York shoot in March 1997, production moved to Florida in July 1997. In Jacksonville, Florida, the interior of the Mrs. Howard's business in Riverside and Avondale was used for New York scenes. Its co-owner Jim Howard remodeled the store and appeared as an extra. The Gainesville church scenes were shot at an actual Gainesville church, after Hackford persuaded the pastor and his members to participate, and that his story was about combating Satan.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: At the end of the film, John Milton morphs into Lucifer as a fallen angel. The crew created the effect by combining life masks depicting Reeves, Pacino in 1997 and Pacino as he appeared in his 1972 film "The Godfather". "The Godfather" make-up artist Dick Smith supplied the life mask he made in the 1970s to "Devil's Advocate" artist Rick Baker, Smith's former protégé. Additionally, Baker created images for demonic faces seen on real actresses and actors, with hands also appearing to move underneath Tamara Tunie's body, a digital creation with the contributions of Richard Greenberg and Stephanie Powell.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Shots of ballerinas moving in water were used as a basis for Milton's animated sculpture. Special effects producer Edward L. Williams said he filmed the people for the statue effect, and that they were naked and placed in a tank next to a blue screen. It took three months to film the people and then add the computer effects, at a cost of $2 million, or 40% of the overall budget for special effects.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: James Newton Howard, a past collaborator with Hackford, was tasked to write the score. Hackford dubbed over Pacino's performance of "It Happened in Monterey" with Sinatra's voice. "Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones is also used for the film's conclusion.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: During early stages of photography, Warner aspired to a release in August 1997. The film eventually had its release on October 17, 1997, on the same day as another horror film, "I Know What You Did Last Summer". To promote the release, Warner's website included the warning on hell's gate from Dante's "Inferno" Canto III (""Abandon every hope, ye who enter here""), with credits presented as circles of hell. The television advertising and poster were upfront as to Milton being Satan, though this is not explicitly revealed in the film itself until its later acts.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Around 475,000 copies of the VHS and DVD were produced by February 1998, but their release into the home video market was delayed pending the "Hart v. Warner Bros., Inc." lawsuit. The film afterwards went into regular airings on TNT and TBS. A Blu-ray edition was released in Region A in 2012, as an "Unrated Director's Cut" in which the art in the climax previously subject to the lawsuit is digitally redone.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: On its opening weekend in October 1997, "The Devil's Advocate" earned $12.2 million, finishing second in the U.S. box office to "I Know What You Did Last Summer", which made $16.1 million. "The Devil's Advocate" was largely competing against thriller films aimed at youth in the Halloween season. By December 6, 1997, it grossed $56.1 million. It ended its run on February 12, 1998, with a gross of $61 million in North America and $92 million elsewhere.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes assigned the film an approval rating of 63% based on 57 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Though it is ultimately somewhat undone by its own lofty ambitions, "The Devil's Advocate" is a mostly effective blend of supernatural thrills and character exploration." Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: Roger Ebert wrote, "The movie never fully engaged me; my mind raced ahead of the plot, and the John Grisham stuff clashed with the "Exorcist" stuff". In "The New York Times", Janet Maslin complimented the "gratifyingly light touch" of using John Milton's name, and special effects with "gimmicks well tethered to reality". David Denby wrote in "New York" that "Devil's Advocate" was "preposterously entertaining" and predicted it would get viewers debating. "Entertainment Weekly" gave it a B, with Owen Gleiberman declaring it "at once silly, overwrought, and almost embarrassingly entertaining", and crediting Pacino for his performance. "Variety"s Todd McCarthy declared it "fairly entertaining", displaying "a nearly operatic sense of absurdity and excess". Dave Kehr of "New York Daily News" also preferred Pacino over Reeves, assessing "The Devil's Advocate" as "Faust" moved to Manhattan, though disappointed that a "witty undercurrent becomes an exaggerated moralism". Critic James Berardinelli wrote that it "is a highly enjoyable motion picture that's part character study, part supernatural thriller, and part morality play".


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: In "The New York Times Magazine", Michiko Kakutani objected to trivializing Satan, reducing "Paradise Lost" vision of the War in Heaven to "an extended lawyer joke". "The Christian Science Monitor"s David Sterritt found it an unsurprising cinematic re-imagining of "Faust" with Satan a lawyer, but he recognized its message of "the need for personal responsibility", albeit with "more lascivious sex and shocking violence than a traditional 'Faust' rendition".


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: The film won the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. Pacino was also nominated for the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: In 2014, Yahoo! named "The Devil's Advocate" as "Pacino's Most Underrated Film", claiming "Pacino's hammy devil never got his due" but "there's something to be said for an actor who can pull off this level of theatrics". In his "2015 Movie Guide", Leonard Maltin gave it three stars, finding Reeves credible and Pacino "delicious". Scott Mendelson wrote in "Forbes" in 2015 that "I love this trashy, vulgar, unapologetically puritan melodrama more than I care to admit". In 2016, "The Huffington Post" reported on an online debate over the possible symbolism in the costume design, as Lomax appears in suits that are light in the beginning, becoming increasingly darker as his morality slips away. The counterpoint is that this merely reflects his increasing social status.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: The film was the subject of legal action in "Hart v. Warner Bros., Inc." in 1997. The claim was that the sculpture featuring human forms in John Milton's apartment closely resembled the "Ex nihilo" sculpture by Frederick Hart on the facade of the Episcopal National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and that a scene involving the sculpture infringed Hart's rights under copyright law in the United States. Hart and the National Cathedral jointly initiated the action, with an argument similar to architect Lebbeus Woods's successful lawsuit over imagery in the film "12 Monkeys". Defenses available to Warner were that the effect was designed without knowledge of "Ex nihilo", or fair use.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: After a federal judge ruled that the film's video release would be delayed until the case went to trial unless a settlement was reached, Warner Bros. agreed to edit the scene for future releases and to attach stickers to unedited videotapes to indicate there was no relation between the art in the film and Hart's work. The settlement in February 1998 meant 475,000 copies of the VHS and DVD could go into rental stores and businesses.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: In 2014, Andrew Neiderman wrote a prequel novel, "Judgment Day", about John Milton arriving in New York City and obtaining control of a major law firm. Neiderman brought the book to Warner Bros. for a television series adaptation. John Wells and Arnold Kopelson unsuccessfully attempted to adapt "Devil's Advocate" into a series in 2014. Produced by Warner Bros. Television, Wells and Kopelson took the project to NBC for a television pilot written by Matt Venne.


title: The Devil's Advocate (1997 film)

text: A musical play based on "The Devil's Advocate" is in development. Julian Woolford also launched a stage adaptation "Advocaat van de Duivel" in the Netherlands, in 2015.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: Yogi Adityanath (born on 5 June 1972 as Ajay Singh Bisht), is an Indian Hindu monk and politician who is serving as the 21st and current Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, since 19 March 2017. A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the RSS, Adityanath is known for being on the far right of Indian politics.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: He was appointed the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on 26 March 2017 after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the 2017 State Assembly elections in which he was a prominent campaigner. The BJP also won the 2022 State Assembly elections: Adityanath continued as Chief Minister, becoming the first chief minister of Uttar Pradesh to return to power after completing a 5-year term in office.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: Currently, he is the member of legislative assembly from Gorakhpur Urban for the second term as a chief minister (from 2022). He contested the 2022 state assembly election from Gorakhpur urban and won with huge margin of votes. Adityanath previously was the member of legislative council during his first tenure as chief minister (2017-2022). He resigned from the legislative council after being elected to the legislative assembly.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: He is a former Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Gorakhpur constituency, Uttar Pradesh, for five consecutive terms from 1998 to 2017 before he resigned to become the Chief Minister.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: Adityanath is also the "mahant" (Head Priest) of the Gorakhnath Math, a Hindu monastery in Gorakhpur, a position he has held since September 2014 following the death of Mahant Avaidyanath, his spiritual "father". He is also the founder of Hindu Yuva Vahini, a Hindu nationalist organisation. He has an image of a Hindutva nationalist and a social conservative.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: Yogi Adityanath was born as Ajay Mohan Singh Bisht on 5 June 1972 in the village of Panchur, in Pauri Garhwal, Uttar Pradesh (now in Uttarakhand) in a Rajput family. His late father, Anand Singh Bisht, was a forest ranger.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: He was the second born in the family, among four brothers and three sisters. He completed his bachelor's degree in mathematics from the Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in Uttarakhand.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: He left his home around the 1990s to join the Ayodhya Ram temple movement. Around that time, he also became a disciple of Mahant Avaidyanath, the chief of the Gorakhnath Math. Mahant Avaidyanath was leading the Ayodhya Ram temple movement at that time. While based in Gorakhpur after his initiation, Adityanath has often visited his ancestral village, establishing a school there in 1998.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: Adityanath was promoted to the rank of "Mahant" or high priest of the Gorakhnath Math after the death of Avaidyanath on 12 September 2014. He was made "Peethadhishwar" (Head Seer) of the Math amid traditional rituals of the Nath sect two days later.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: Yogi Adityanath belongs to a specific tradition of Hindutva politics in Uttar Pradesh that can be traced back to the Mahant Digvijay Nath, who led the placing of idols in the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 22 December 1949. Both Digvijay Nath and his successor Avaidyanath belonged to the Hindu Mahasabha and were elected to the Parliament on that party's ticket. After the BJP and the Sangh Parivar joined the Ayodhya movement in the 1980s, the two strands of Hindu nationalism came together. Avaidyanath switched to the BJP in 1991, but nevertheless maintained significant autonomy. Four years after Adityanath was designated Avaidyanath's successor, he was elected to the Lower House of the Indian Parliament (the Lok Sabha).


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: After his first electoral win, Adityanath started his own youth organisation Hindu Yuva Vahini, which came to be known for its activities in the eastern Uttar Pradesh and was instrumental in Adityanath's meteoric rise. There have been recurrent tensions between Adityanath and the BJP leadership over the allocation of election tickets. However, the BJP has not let the tensions mount because Adityanath has served as a star campaigner for the party.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: In 2006, he took up links between Nepali Maoists and Indian Leftist parties as a key campaign issue and encouraged Madhesi leaders to oppose Maoism in Nepal. In 2008, his convoy was reportedly attacked while en route to Azamgarh for an anti-terrorism rally. The attack left one person dead and at least six persons injured.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: In January 2007, Adityanath with other BJP leaders had gathered to mourn the death of a man who was killed because of religious violence. He and his supporters were subsequently arrested by the police and lodged in Gorkhapur jail on the charges of disturbing peace and violating prohibitory orders. His arrest led to further unrest during which several coaches of the Mumbai bound Mumbai-Gorakhpur Godan Express were burnt, allegedly by protesting Hindu Yuva Vahini activists. The day after the arrest, the District Magistrate and the local police chief were transferred and replaced.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: Adityanath was the youngest member of the 12th Lok Sabha at 26. He was elected to the Parliament from Gorakhpur for five consecutive terms (in 1998, 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014 elections).


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: Adityanath's attendance in Lok Sabha was 77% and he has asked 284 questions, participated in 56 debates and introduced three private member Bills in the 16th Lok Sabha.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: Having established his own independent power base in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, with the support of the Hindu Yuva Vahini and the Gorakhnath Math, he felt confident to be able to dictate terms to the BJP. When his voice was not heard, he revolted by fielding candidates against the official BJP candidates. The most prominent example was the fielding of Radha Mohan Das Agarwal from Gorakhpur on a Hindu Mahasabha ticket in 2002, who then defeated BJP Cabinet minister, Shiv Pratap Shukla by a wide margin. In 2007, Adityanath threatened to field 70 candidates for the state assembly against the BJP candidates. But he reached a compromise in the end.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: In 2009 Parliamentary elections, Adityanath was rumoured to have campaigned against the BJP candidates who were then defeated.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: Despite his periodic revolts, Yogi Adityanath has been kept in good humour by the RSS and the BJP leaders. The deputy prime minister L. K. Advani, the RSS chief Rajendra Singh and the VHP chief Ashok Singhal have visited him in Gorakhpur. During 22–24 December 2006, Adityanath organised a three-day "Virat Hindu Mahasammelan" at Gorakhpur at the same time as the BJP National Executive Meet in Lucknow. Despite the conflict, several RSS and VHP leaders attended the "Mahasammelan", which issued a commitment to pursue the Hindutva goals despite the BJP's claimed "abandonment" of them.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: In 2018, he campaigned for BJP candidate Pratap Puriji Maharaj for Rajasthan state assembly election.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: Adityanath was a prominent campaigner for the BJP in the 2017 assembly elections in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The state government appointed him Chief Minister on 18 March 2017; he was sworn in the next day, after the BJP won the assembly elections.


title: Yogi Adityanath

text: After becoming a Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Adityanath kept around 36 ministries under his direct control, including Home, Housing, Town and country planning department, Revenue, Food and Civil Supplies, Food Security and drug administration, Economics and statistics, Mines and Minerals, Flood control, Stamp and registry, Prison, General administration, Secretariat administration, Vigilance, Personnel and appointment, Information, Institutional finance, Planning, Estate department, Urban land, UP state reorganisation committee, Administration reforms, Programme implementation, National integration, Infrastructure, Coordination, Language, External aided project, Relief and Rehabilitation, Public Service Management, Rent Control, Consumer protection and Weights and measures.