Qualla: Royal Tomb of Akhenaten https://qualla.com/royal-tomb-of-akhenaten en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:34:06 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/y/j/royal-tomb-of-akhenaten-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Royal Tomb of Akhenaten https://qualla.com/royal-tomb-of-akhenaten Royal Tomb of Akhenaten: Introduction https://qualla.com/royal-tomb-of-akhenaten/ Photo credit Didia (when using this photo please credit "photo by David Schmid"), CC BY-SA 3.0. Most ancient Egyptian tombs were chosen for their reach toward eternity. Akhenaten chose this one to face the sun. He cut his royal tomb into a lonely side valley far up a desert wadi east of his new capital, on a line aimed at his god, hoping the dawn would shine straight down the corridor into his burial chamber. It never quite worked - the valley walls are too high - and almost nothing else about his grand design worked either. Within a generation his religion was abandoned, his name was chiseled off the monuments, his tomb was broken open and wrecked, and his body was gone. What survives in tomb TA26 is a ruin. But it is a ruin that preserves the most human moment in all of Egyptian royal art.

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Image: Didia (when using this photo please credit "photo by David Schmid") | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/y/j/royal-tomb-of-akhenaten-wp/ssyj-royal-tomb-of-akhenaten-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Royal Tomb of Akhenaten: The Pharaoh Who Tried to Change Everything https://qualla.com/royal-tomb-of-akhenaten/ Photo credit Leon petrosyan, CC BY-SA 4.0. Akhenaten came to the throne as Amenhotep IV, son of Amenhotep III, with Nefertiti as his great royal wife and a family of six daughters. Then he did something no Egyptian king had done. He swept away the crowded pantheon of traditional gods and declared a single divine power: th...

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Image: Leon petrosyan | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/y/j/royal-tomb-of-akhenaten-wp/ssyj-royal-tomb-of-akhenaten-the-pharaoh-who-tried-to-change-everything.mp3 0:06 2 full Royal Tomb of Akhenaten: A Family's Grief, Carved in Stone https://qualla.com/royal-tomb-of-akhenaten/ Photo credit Didia (when using this photo please credit "photo by David Schmid"), CC BY-SA 3.0. The tomb was never finished, and grief kept arriving before the masons could. Around year 14 of his reign, Akhenaten's second daughter, Meketaten - a girl thought to have been about ten - died. A side suite of rooms was hastily prepared to receive her. On the walls of her chamber...

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Image: Didia (when using this photo please credit "photo by David Schmid") | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/y/j/royal-tomb-of-akhenaten-wp/ssyj-royal-tomb-of-akhenaten-a-familys-grief-carved-in-stone.mp3 0:06 3 full Royal Tomb of Akhenaten: The Erasure https://qualla.com/royal-tomb-of-akhenaten/ Photo credit JMCC1, CC BY-SA 3.0. Akhenaten died in the seventeenth year of his reign and was laid in the one finished room, the pillared hall, his mother Queen Tiye resting near him. Then the experiment collapsed. His young successor - the boy who would become famous as Tutankhamun - abandoned Amarna and moved t...

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Image: JMCC1 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/y/j/royal-tomb-of-akhenaten-wp/ssyj-royal-tomb-of-akhenaten-the-erasure.mp3 0:06 4 full Royal Tomb of Akhenaten: Rediscovered and Read Again https://qualla.com/royal-tomb-of-akhenaten/ Photo credit Hotepibre, CC BY-SA 4.0. The wadi kept its secret until the 1880s, when local villagers found the tomb and quietly removed what they could sell - jewelry reportedly from here reached a museum in Edinburgh by 1883. Their wariness of outsiders was understandable: just two years earlier, authorities had for...

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Image: Hotepibre | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/y/j/royal-tomb-of-akhenaten-wp/ssyj-royal-tomb-of-akhenaten-rediscovered-and-read-again.mp3 0:06 5 full