Mini: Deir el-Amarna

Amarna Tales (Part 1). East of Akhet-Aten (Amarna), a walled-village hides among the hills. This "East Village" is a well-ordered, secluded community. It seems to be the new home of pharaoh's tomb builders. Originally, they lived at Deir el-Medina in west Luxor. But when Akhenaten founded his new royal city, the tomb-builders left their homes and came here. Today, archaeologists have uncovered a vast amount of material. Homes, animal pens, chapels, and countless artefacts shed light on daily life and family organisation in ancient Egypt. From homes to chapels, guard-houses to water depots, the East Village offers fantastic insights. It even includes traces of Tutankhamun, before he abandoned Amarna...

Episode details:

• Date: c.1355 - 1340 BCE.
• Location: Akhet-Aten (el-Amarna).
• Kings: Akhenaten, Neferneferuaten, Tutankhaten/Tutankhamun.
• Website: www.egyptianhistorypodcast.com.
• Support the show via Patreon www.patreon.com/egyptpodcast.
• Make a one-time donation via PayPal payments.
• Logo image: A battle standard or soldier's emblem, with a sigil of Wepwawet (Kemp 2012).
• Music by Keith Zizza www.keithzizza.net.
• Music by Bettina Joy de Guzman www.bettinajoydeguzman.com.
• Music interludes by Luke Chaos https://twitter.com/Luke_Chaos.

Select Bibliography:

1. Read reports on the East Village and other aspects of Amarna's archaeology free, at The Amarna Project.
2. M. Bierbrier, The Tomb-Builders of the Pharaohs (1982).
3. A. H. Bomann, The Private Chapel in Ancient Egypt: A Study of the Chapels in the Workmen’s Village at El Amarna with Special Reference to Deir el Medina and Other Sites (1991).
4. B. G. Davies, Life Within the Five Walls: A Handbook to Deir el-Medina (2018).
5. B. Kemp, The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Amarna and Its People (2012).
6. B. J. Kemp, Amarna Reports I (1984). Free at The Amarna Project.
7. B. J. Kemp, ‘The Amarna Workmen’s Village in Retrospect’, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 73 (1987), 21–50.
8. T. E. Peet and C. L. Woolley, The City of Akhenaten, Volume I (1923). Available free at Archive.org.
9. A. Stevens, Private Religion at Amarna. The Material Evidence (2006).
10. A. Stevens, ‘Private Religion in the Amarna Suburbs’, in F. Kampp-Seyfried (ed.), In the Light of Amarna: 100 Years of the Nefertiti Discovery (2012), 95—97.
11. A. Stevens, ‘Visibility, Private Religion and the Urban Landscape of Amarna’, in M. Dalton et al. (eds.), Seen & Unseen Spaces (2015), 77—84.

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