Bioarcheological Field School in Egypt
Country Information & Resources
The ancient Egyptian city of Tell el-Amarna (or simply Amarna) was the short-lived capital built by the ‘heretic’ Pharaoh Akhenaten and abandoned shortly after his death (c. 1332 BCE). It was here that he pursued his vision of a society dedicated to the cult of one god, the power of the sun (the Aten).
As well as this historic interest Amarna remains the largest readily accessible living-site from ancient Egypt. It is thus simultaneously the key to a chapter in the history of religious experience and to a fuller understanding of what it was like to be an ancient Egyptian. There is no other site like it.
Amarna occupies a large bay of almost flat desert hemmed in for much of its perimeter by cliffs that rise by approximately 100 metres to a high desert plateau. From the north headland to the south headland, both of which approach close to the Nile, is a distance of 10 kms.
Plateau and cliffs are cut by dried valleys and torrent beds (wadis) that lead further back into the desert. In the south-east the cliffs fall back to leave a broad flat valley that begins above a low and very irregular terrace edge that continues the line of the cliffs.
Excerpt Courtesy of the Amarna Project
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