the authority of his lineage, as well as his support
among the masses who believed in the triad of
Amen, Mut, and Khonsu.
Given the resistance that Amenhotep IV faced
in Waset, and he did receive resistance, he soon
had to leave the city where his fathers had ruled
for centuries. Masses revolted and burned the
temple he had built in honor of his newly autho-
rized deity, Aten, and the priests, Her and Suti, at
the temple saw him as a heretic. He changed his
name to Akhenaten to reflect his devotion to the
new deity, appointed priests to officiate in the
rituals to Aten, and decided to move the royal
family, indeed the royal capital, from Waset to a
city in northern Upper Egypt to escape the daily
strictures of the officials in the capital city.
Akhetaten lasted from 366 to 354 BC.
Thus, 6 years after the beginning of his reign,
Akhenaten moved the capital to Akhetaten,
meaning “The Horizon of Aten.” In some
senses, this 12-square-mile city located on the
Nile about 100 miles north of Waset was meant
to convey newness in the fact that no other
deities had been worshipped in that location.
Here Akhenaten could convey his love of and
appreciation for the Aten, unfettered by history
and politics. Nearly 400 tablets were discovered
in the 19th century, attesting to the richness of
the city in art and culture. Indeed, the poems
that we now know as reflecting the culture of
Akhenaten court, the Aten hymns, were discov-
ered during this period.
Akhetaten flourished as the capital city
because artists who wanted to please the king
journeyed to its walls. They produced art reflec-
tive of the new religion of Aten and were well
regarded and rewarded by Akhenaten. In the
meantime, it is believed that, although he lived
behind the well-guarded pylons of the city, many
other activities in the kingdom were left untended
to, and soon Waset began to reassert itself as the
true heart of the country. With the death of
Akhenaten and the rise of Tutankhamen, the son
of Akhenaten, the empire went back to its center,
and the royal house was gladly received at the
gates of Amen.
Molefi Kete AsanteSee alsoAkhenaten
Further Readings
Asante, M. K. (2007).The History of Africa. London:
Routledge.
Grimal, N. (1992).A History of Ancient Egypt(I. Shaw,
Trans.). Cambridge, UK: Blackwell.
Shaw, I. (2004).The Oxford History of Egypt. Oxford,
UK: Oxford University Press.ALAFIN OF OYO
Alafin of Oyo is the title given to the supreme
political ruler of the Yoruba. During the height of
the Yoruba kingdom in the 17th and 18th centuries, the
Alafin once ruled an empire that stretched from the
Niger Delta to Togo, reflecting his military-political
reach within Western Africa. The Alafin of Oyo, like
many African leaders, is considered legendary and
sacred, and there are many regulations and rituals
that go with his position. The Alafin is a divine per-
son who must live apart from ordinary people who
in the past were not allowed to see his face or to
speak to him directly because he was a god. He was
never seen eating or drinking in public. In fact, he
did not die. The Alafin passed from one village to
another village, but death was not a part of his exis-
tence. In this way, the people are protected in their
daily lives, and the stability of the nation is directly
related to the stability of the Alafin of Oyo.
There were occasions when the Alafin was forced
to commit suicide, particularly if the people felt his
divinity has slipped away from him because of some
violation of a taboo or some gross irregularity that
threatened the kingdom. Normally, however, no one
dared to disrupt the Alafin’s rule because his
enthronement was enough to ensure his divinity. He
was god in human form. This entry looks at the
context in which the Alafin ruled and describes
some leaders who held this title.Historical Background
To understand the role and place of the Alafin, one
must appreciate the fact that the Yoruba are an
ancient people who presently live in southwest
Nigeria, but whose mythology claims a legacy
from East Africa. Their history is long, and there
are oral traditions that trace the origin of the34 Alafin of Oyo