Temple of Akhenaten
Located to the east and outside the temenos (enclosing) wall of the great temple of Amen-Re are the remains of a temple built by Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten). The temple called the Gem-pa-Aten (“The Aten is found”), was built by Akhenaten for the new religion during the first five years of his reign and before he changed his name and moved to the site of Amarna in Middle Egypt. This transitory period of Akhenaten is quite interesting because it departs completely from the nature of Egyptian art and religion up to that time. Akhenaten totally abandoned the worship of Amen in favor of the Aten or the visible solar disk. The Aten was already known at the time of the Pyramid Texts, but never attained the prominence that it would under Akhenaten (1350-1334 BCE).
Recent investigations conducted by the University of Toronto, starting in 1966, have revealed much of the Aten temple. The area it covered has been found to be quite large (426 ft. X 656 ft.) with much of the plan not yet established due to the problem that much of the central and eastern area are located beneath modern houses. What is known is that the temple seems to have been made up of an open court surrounded by a colonnade of square sandstone columns about 23 feet high. Against each of the pillars on the south side, a colossal statue of Akhenaten, shown in the unique style of the period of his early reign, stood. He was shown wearing the royal double crown and the feathers of the god Shu alternatively on these statues. The faces on the statues and the reliefs show a sensuality that is a total departure from the usual Pharaonic depictions. Additionally, fragments of life size figures of the king and queen have been found at the line of the western colonnade along with granite offering slabs that were perhaps placed in front of the figures.
Blocks referred to as talatat (small building blocks), from the temple have been recovered and they depict a Sed festival which the king celebrated in his second or third year. To celebrate a Sed festival at this point of his reign is, in and of itself, unusual, as these jubilees were usually not celebrated until thirty years on the throne had passed. Also shown are sacrifices, musicians, dancers, and the royal family, whose omnipresence in the art of the period marked another departure from the usual convention. When Akhenaten moved to Amarna, all building in the area ceased and in time the great temple of Amen even ceased to operate. The building process at Karnak was again resumed (but on a limited scale) with the death of Akhenaten and the coming of Tutankhamen who was followed by Ay at the end of the Eighteenth dynasty.
Egyptian Museum, Cairo
The temple was at last destroyed under the reign of Horemheb at the beginning of the nineteenth dynasty. Most of the talatat blocks were reused in the second, ninth and perhaps the third and tenth pylons at Karnak in the great temple of Amen. Many of these were used as foundation blocks for the large pylons that came later. It has been argued by some that the reuse of these blocks indicated that there was a respect for the religious revolution of Akhenaten and that these blocks are representative of his ideas being incorporated into later structures within the temple. Nothing could be further from the truth. The complete destruction of his Aten temple at Karnak would indicate quite the contrary. All the temples in this vast city of god were added to and decorated by the kings that followed in a usual and ongoing way that was evidenced by a religiosity of purpose. None, with the exception of this temple, show such a systematic destruction as evidenced here. The use of the blocks as foundation stones shows a wish to express the complete domination of Amen and the other gods of Karnak by a crushing of this heresy under the buildings of a triumphant god.
Talatat in Luxor Museum