Moses and Akhenaten
one and the same person By Ahmed Osman

First Montheist

Akhenaten is the most mysterious and most interesting of all ancient Egyptian pharaohs. He created a revolution in religion, philosophy and art, which resulted in the introduction of the first monotheistic form of worship known in history. Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis, was the first to suggest a connection between Moses and Akhenaten. In his last book Moses and Monotheism, published in 1939, Freud argued that biblical Moses was an official in the court of Akhenaten, and an adherent of the Aten religion. After the death of Akhenaten, Freud’s theory goes, Moses selected the Israelite tribe living east of the Nile Delta to be his chosen people, took them out of Egypt at the time of the Exodus, and passed on to them the tenets of Akhenaten’s religion.

When modern archaeologists came across the strangely-drawn figure of Akhenaten in the ruins of Tell el-Amarna, in the middle of the 19th century, they were not sure what to make of him. Some thought he was a woman disguised as a king. By the early years of the 20th century when the city of Amarna had been excavated and more became known about him and his family, Akhenaten became a focus of interest for Egyptologists, who saw him as a visionary humanitarian as well as the first monotheist.

In my attempt to pursue Freud’s theory through the examination of recent archaeological findings, I came to the conclusion that Moses was Akhenaten himself. The son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye, daughter of his minister Yuya whom I had identified as Joseph the patriarch, he had an Egyptian father and an Israelite mother. Yuya, whom I have identified as patriarch Joseph of the Bible, was appointed by Tuthmosis IV to be the Master of the King’s Horses and Deputy of the Royal Chariotry. On coming to the throne, Amenhotep III married his sister Sitamun, who was just a child of three years at the time, according to Egyptian customs. However, in his Year 2 Amenhotep decided to marry Tiye, the girl whom he loved and made her, rather than Sitamun, his Great Royal Wife (queen). As a wedding present, Amenhotep presented Tiye with the frontier fortress of Zarw (in the area of modern Kantara in north Sinai) the capital of the Land of Goshen, mentioned by the Bible as the area where the Israelites dwell in Egypt, where he built a summer palace for her. According to Egyptian customs the king could marry as many women as he desires, however, the queen whose children will follow him on the throne, must be his sister the heiress. To commemorate his marriage with Tiye, the king issued a large scarab and sent copies of it to foreign kings and princes.