Presenting: Greeking Out by National Geographic Kids | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic

Foreign last week, you heard our episode on King Tut. To help us keep the ancient Egyptian party going, we're welcoming the Greeking Out podcast from Nachio Kids. They have a special episode dedicated to another Egyptian pharaoh and mythmaker. Here to help introduce us to the show is Emily Everhart, Greeking Out's senior producer.

Hey hey Emily, so our listeners may not know about Greeking Out. Can you tell me a little bit more about your show?

Absolutely! Greeking Out is a podcast for kids about Greek mythology. So it's Greek mythology, but how do we get from Greek mythology to ancient Egypt? Well, it's funny you should ask. We had an episode about monsters and we wanted to do the Sphinx. After doing some research, we found out that the Sphinx is actually an Egyptian monster that the Greeks really glommed onto, basically. After that, we kind of moved on to other myths from other countries and continents, and it makes a lot of sense. There would be cross-pollination. We really are right across the street from each other.

Yeah, so could you tell us a little bit about this episode you've planned for Tut?

Absolutely! We're going to focus on Akhenaten, who is probably King Tut's father. He was quite a figure because he engaged in a lot of myth-making about himself. He said all of your gods don't exist anymore; my God is the only God that is important. He caused a lot of ruffles, as you can imagine, and he just upset the whole apple cart.

I bet the priests were not happy about that.

They are not! And actually, we talk about that a little bit in the podcast, how it was a bit of a political play as well. So we're going to play an episode for you about Akhenaten produced by Emily and the team at Greeking Out. Here it is!

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The stories featured in Greeking Out are usually original adaptations of classic Greek myths. This week's story features anthropomorphic stars, megalomania, rewriting religion, the pain of moving, artsy fartsy stuff, and the pharaoh Tutankhamun. Breaking out to the greatest stories!

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Greeking Out is about myths, right?

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No oracle, just stick with me. You know how we usually talk about Greek myths and then sometimes we talk about myths from other cultures, right? So, you know that myths are stories created by lots of people over long periods of time, told over and over again. They're usually about superhuman beings or gods, and people might slightly change the myth to make it more exciting or more relevant to their lives the next time they tell it. And so, over time, the myth could change a bit. It's kind of a group effort, and everybody pitches in. So when we tell the stories of Heracles or Circe, we're participating in the myth too.

But today's story is something different. What happens when one person decides that a new myth is the best myth and that everybody else should have to follow what they believe, or else?

I believe people should be kind.

Well, that seems reasonable, but one ancient Egyptian pharaoh made a belief system all by himself, and things went well. You'll see. We've already talked about two myths from ancient Egypt on this podcast. In season five, we told you the story about Usir and Asset, and in season six, we heard about Hero and Set. Now, these stories meant a lot to the ancient Egyptians. They explained things like how people could be reborn in the afterlife if the proper mummification steps were followed, or that the very best pharaoh would always be the King's son, no matter how qualified another candidate might be. Ancient Egyptians believed in hundreds of gods, and they called on different gods for different reasons. For example, Hoteferu, also known as Hathor, protected people during childbirth. The lion goddess Sekhmet was associated with healing and medicine. The jackal god Anubis was the god of embalming. You might call on a certain god at a certain time in your life. Gods might get new names; they might become more or less popular over time. They might even merge together to form a new god. But the system stayed the same.

In this system, the pharaoh served as the highest priest, sort of a go-between between gods and men, making sure that the gods stayed happy. They protected the people of Egypt from chaos and united the two lands, Upper and Lower Egypt. After the pharaoh died, he joined the gods in the field of reeds. It was a belief system that worked for a really long time, throughout almost the entire span of over 3000 years of ancient Egyptian history. This all stayed pretty much the same except for one weird blip: this one funky pharaoh who decided to upend the system and try something new. And that's what we're talking about today: not a myth, but a real person from history who created his own myth.

The year is 1353 BCE, and Pharaoh Amenhotep III has just died after 38 years on the throne. He had ruled over an extremely wealthy and powerful Egypt, and he left his 18-year-old son, Amenhotep IV, in a good position to keep the good times rolling. Both pharaoh's names, Amenhotep, mean "Amun is pleased," honoring the god Amun. This makes sense because Amun was considered the King of the Gods, as well as the god of the sun. In previous episodes, we've talked about Usir as the King of the Gods, but things change, and gods go in and out of favor. In this time period, Amun was the most prominent god. Like I said earlier, Amun had been gaining popularity for centuries, and during the time of the Amenhotep's, the Amun priests were wealthy and powerful. Heck, they even owned more land than the pharaoh! But hey, Amun's got an important job, right? Making the sun come up each day is probably not easy.

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The Earth creates the illusion of the sun's movement.

Yeah, we know! Fair point. For the first few years, Amenhotep IV acted very much like your average pharaoh. He appeared in art as a muscular king. Seems like a weird detail now, but more on that later. He married a woman named Nefertiti. You might recognize her. The bust of Nefertiti was discovered in 1912 in Tell Amarna, and is very famous. It is currently in a museum in Berlin. He also added monuments at the local temple dedicated to Amun, and he participated in important ceremonies to ensure that the gods remained happy. You know, the usual pharaoh stuff. But after a few years, our guy stopped being a normal pharaoh. One day, Amenhotep IV made an announcement. He said that the temples were in ruins and that the gods of Egypt had stopped appearing—well, all but one. The only God remaining would be the only one he would worship going forward.

And who was this God? Well, not Amun, but a minor deity named Aten. This god had previously been considered just one form of the sun god Amun. The Egyptians believed the gods could take many forms. In this case, Aten was the sun in the sky, but for Amenhotep, Aten wasn't just part of Amun; Aten was his own thing. Here's how the pharaoh described his god: "Splendid you rise, O living Aten, eternal lord. You are radiant, beauteous, mighty. Your love is great, immense. Your rays light up all faces. Your life here gives life to hearts. When you fill the two lands with your love."

It kind of makes sense, right? I mean, why worship abstract gods that nobody's ever seen before when the sun is right there? You can literally look at it; you can feel its warmth, and best of all, it reigns over all of Egypt.

Do not look directly at the sun; your eyes can become damaged from only a couple seconds of sun gazing!

Right! Important safety tip; thank you, Oracle. Anyway, no more Usir, or Asset, or Hero, or Set in Egypt. Forget those guys! They aren't effective anymore; they aren't necessary. And if they aren't doing any work and aren't needed, Amenhotep wouldn't be sending any more money to the temples dedicated to those gods. And this is huge! Ancient religions incorporated many gods into their belief systems. Like, think of the Greeks who worship Zeus, Hero, Athena, and all the rest. For thousands of years of human history across lots of cultures, worshiping many gods was the way to go. Why? Well, it probably helped ancient people understand why the world could be so wonderful and so scary at the same time. Like honey is incredible, but hurricanes? Not so much. These two things must be coming from different deities because there's no way they're the same.

Amenhotep probably didn't have a way to explain that, and he didn't really need to. Pharaohs don't really have to explain themselves to anybody. So Amenhotep built temples to his one and only god, Aten, throughout Egypt. These temples must have seemed strange to the other Egyptians because normal temples contained dark sacred rooms where the statues of gods could be tended to by the priests. The Egyptians believed that the spirits of the gods would enter the statues and accept their offerings. But the new temples dedicated to Aten removed the roofs and had no statues of Aten. I mean, if your god is pure light, then just let the sunshine in, right?

It takes 8.32 minutes for light from the sun to reach Earth.

In this new religion, the old way of getting to the afterlife, you know, you get mummified, you follow the instructions on your tomb, you meet up with the gods, that was all old news. Nobody did that anymore. The new way was, well, unclear, and definitely not the same way their ancestors had been doing it. What even were the instructions now? This new system was far from comforting.

And of course, the Aten was very particular about who he talked to. Therefore, there was only one person who was close to Aten—you guessed it—it was Amenhotep IV. Except that even the name Amenhotep wasn't working anymore. In the fifth year of his reign, Amenhotep IV put his belief where his mouth was, or you know, something, and changed his name. If Aten was the only god that mattered, he couldn't go around with a name that honored Amun. Maybe he tossed around some other solar names, like maybe like King Summer's My Favorite, or Lord Don't Want to Wear Sunscreen, or whatever!

Ultraviolet light from the sun can damage your DNA, create painful sunburns, and even lead to cancer. Sunscreen protects the wearer from these negative impacts.

Right, right! Of course I was just kidding, Oracle. I'm always SPF 100!

Anyway, Amenhotep renamed himself Akhenaten. It means Aten is satisfied, or one who is useful for the Aten. He gave his wife a new name too: Nefertiti, meaning "beautiful is the beauty of Aten; the beautiful one has come."

Now you gotta wonder how everybody else was reacting to this. We can only imagine how the elites nervously whispered to each other about their odd ruler. The king was supposed to serve all gods; that was his job! What about Maat, the right and proper way of doing things? Are we in danger here? Sorry to say, but Akhenaten was just getting started.

But before he gets going, let's stop for an ad break! You guys ready for a break? I'm ready for a break! Where's my sunscreen?

Okay, we're back! So Akhenaten's got a new religious system, one god instead of many, a cool new name, and he's refusing to send any money to fund the temples of the gods he doesn't care about anymore. And I can't stress enough how much people didn't like this. Just picture the priests of all the other gods who suddenly no longer had jobs. So the gods we've worshiped for thousands of years are just like meaningless? What about the ceremonies and offerings we've done for our loved ones? Do they not count anymore? What about our jobs?

Akhenaten didn't want to deal with their whining, so he prepared to leave the capital city of Thebes, modern-day Luxor. Thebes was the city of Amun, and other cities also had resident deities. Just like Athens had Athena, Memphis was the city of the god Bata, Heliopolis the city of Ra, and so on and so on.

So Akhenaten decided to build a city somewhere new, somewhere untouched by any other god. Somewhere honestly kind of bad. Akhenaten chose a chunk of desert above the east bank of the Nile River that had never been built upon before to construct his new city. And it turns out there was a reason it had never been built upon before. This dry plain didn't have easy access to the Nile, so workers had to haul up water every day in order to make life work. He named the city "Horizon of the Aten." You're getting a theme here. Today it's known by its modern name, Tell Amarna, or just Amarna, which is what gives this time period its name in history.

Now we're going to call the city Amarna in this episode because that can get kind of confusing. We all know what a huge pain it is to move all of your stuff: right, the packing, the unpacking. Well, elite members of Egyptian society had to move with their king or lose their spot. No more hobnobbing with royalty if they live out in the desert and you don't.

But the city at Amarna didn't even exist yet! These people likely had to live in tents out in the desert until their homes could be built. Although that was probably considered "roughing it" for the wealthiest Egyptians. This whole process was probably hardest on the common people—not the priests or the elites. The workers who built the city of Amarna really suffered. In just a few short years, the workers built an eight-by-three-mile city with a royal palace and an Aten temple over half a mile long, with enough space for over 1700 offering tables open to the sun.

Archaeologists have studied the cemeteries surrounding the city where the workers were buried, and they've learned that those people died younger than in other parts of Egypt and often had spine damage and signs of malnutrition. Constructing a brand-new city at a breakneck pace had an enormous cost, but Akhenaten would never tell you that. In his royal art, he displayed a perfect picture of harmony, wealth, and peace.

And speaking of art, we have to tell you his royal art was weird! Okay, let's just say it was weird compared to other ancient Egyptian art. To support his new religion, Akhenaten and his artists created a new style that would shock the people around him. First, the god Aten... Now, gods were usually depicted as humans, animals, or human-animal combos like the god Horus, who is often shown as a man with a falcon's head. These figures were probably easier for people to relate to. But you know Akhenaten by now, and you know he's not going to do things the usual way. If Aten was just the sun, then in the art, the god would just be a disc.

Picture the most basic drawing you could make of the sun, like a circle with little rays of light. Yeah, that's what Akhenaten did too, except some of the rays of light—the beams that reach down to touch the royal family—had little tiny hands.

Okay, that is weird!

I know right? See, I told you! And the hands hold little ankh symbols, which meant life. Basically, through this art, Akhenaten was saying that the god Aten blessed the royal family and only the royal family with life. Even though everybody might be able to see and feel the sun, Akhenaten and his family were the only ones who could really get the sun.

And the artistic revolution didn't stop there. Like Egypt's religion, Egypt's art style had remained pretty much the same for about a thousand years. Reality wasn't really the point. Pharaohs were always shown youthful and super buff, no matter what they actually looked like. The art told the people of Egypt and beyond that the pharaoh was strong, powerful, and good at his job.

Well, our guy Akhenaten went for something a little different. He instructed his artists to depict him and his family with elongated faces, necks, and heads. Their arms and hands were long and spindly; their hips and thighs were big and round; and they all had pouchy tummies. The artists messed around with traditional compositions, instead showing the royal family's flowy, curvy bodies and more naturalistic and relaxed poses. Even stranger, the art often showed Akhenaten and his family doing, well, family stuff.

In many scenes, Akhenaten and Nefertiti sit facing each other, cuddling and playing with their daughters. In one relief, a daughter climbs up Nefertiti's shoulder and touches her mom's cheek like she's trying to get her attention. Now, these may be sweet family scenes, but they were not the type of thing that Egyptian rulers would normally show in royal art. Pharaohs go to war, smite their enemies, and hang out with gods. If they ever played the ancient Egyptian version of tea party with their kids, they definitely didn't put it in their official royal art.

So what's going on here? Well, the sculptors certainly weren't trying to make fun of the royal family by depicting them with elongated heads and bodies. In fact, Akhenaten himself had demanded the statues look that way. He was definitely doing it on purpose. Maybe Akhenaten wanted to look otherworldly, so that other Egyptians knew he and his family were special. They were so, so close to the god Aten that they'd become superhuman. The art shows off maybe Akhenaten's most important religious belief, though: that Aten was a god that only he and his family could understand. The god blessed him and his family, and no one else.

So if a regular Egyptian wanted to ask a favor in their life or pray to a deity, they might as well just worship Akhenaten, and maybe he'd pass the blessing along. It was a major change from ancient Egyptians being able to appeal directly to a god for health or guidance.

Now at some point in his reign, Akhenaten went beyond just being an artist, a city builder, or a man with unusual religious beliefs. He actually attacked the other gods! Akhenaten officially closed all the temples, outlawed the worship of other deities, and he sent out workers across the land to remove the name and image of Amun, Amun's wife, the goddess, and anything that indicated there were multiple gods. They took tools to temple walls and monuments and chipped off the King of the Gods. This was his worst offense, and it's likely what earned Akhenaten his nickname: the Heretic King, a one who goes against established religious beliefs.

Again, I can’t stress enough how unpopular all of these changes were. There is evidence that regular people secretly kept small statues to the old gods in their homes. Even in Amarna, everyone was unhappy—everyone except Akhenaten, his family, and the people closest to power.

But it all came to a screeching halt when, 17 years into his reign, Akhenaten died. Experts aren't sure who was in charge next; it's a bit unclear. It's possible Nefertiti took the throne for a while, but eventually, the throne passed to a boy who is likely Akhenaten's son who went by the name of Tutankhaten, or the living image of Aten. This boy reversed course and abandoned the city of Amarna very quickly, leaving everything standing just as it was in the middle of the desert.

More importantly, this new young pharaoh restored the gods and the priests to their rightful status, bringing the society back to its traditional practices. He even changed his name to Tutankhamun, or Tutankhamun, to make it clear whose side he was on!

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So it is likely he had help with these decisions. Later pharaohs would tear down all that Akhenaten built and strike his name from a list of kings. The myth that Akhenaten tried to create died along with him. But we are still left with a question: why did he do it? Was it to take away power from the priests who were becoming more wealthy than the pharaoh? Did he want to be worshipped like a god and collect all the power? Or did he have a sincere belief in the power of Aten?

We will probably never know the answer, but it's still an interesting thing to think about. So since we've reached the end of this episode, it's probably a good time to tell you that this year is the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb! That's right, King Tut! And we're celebrating by collaborating with other kids' podcasts to bring you some fun ancient Egyptian episodes.

First up, we're doing a feed swap with our friends at Overheard at Nat Geo, and if you're listening to this on the Overheard feed, you may have already figured that out. But don't worry, we'll be back on Friday with another episode of Greeking Out, and then we have a bunch of fun episodes coming out this month from our podcasting friends! Stay tuned for a full list of amazing ancient Egyptian episodes.

Thanks for listening to this week's episode! On Tuesday, watch out for a special bonus family-friendly episode from Overheard at Nat Geo. Check out the description of this episode to find links to all the podcasts with an ancient Egypt episode in honor of the discovery of King Tut's tomb. Some aren't out yet but will be coming out soon from our friends at Tumble, Forever Ago, Mystery Recipe, Girls Tales, The 10 News, Flip, and Mosey's Guide to How to Be an Earthling, and The Big FIB. You can start with Forever Ago, which is releasing an episode on October 26th about why so many Egyptian artifacts are not in Egypt.

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Torch this episode of National Geographic Kids Greeking Out is written by Allison Shaw and Nat Geo Kids magazine editor, and hosted by Kenny Curtis with Tori Kerr as the Oracle of Wi-Fi. Audio production and sound design by Scotty Beam, and our theme song was composed by Perry Gripp. Dr. Emily Teeter is our subject matter expert, and Emily Everhart is our producer.

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That was Greeking Out! If you'd like to check out more episodes, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts.

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Excuse me!