Barry Kemp Interview

September 27, 2006.

Excavating Amarna

"Does the increased focus on new art styles during the Amarna period and the discovery of sculptors' workshops at the site suggest there were more artisans here or a larger part of the city was dedicated to art production than at other capitals? Or could this simply reflect the fact that the archaeological record at other cities was more disturbed by later building over the centuries or may still lie beneath modern buildings?

Again, comparison with other places is impossible. The evidence is not there. Akhenaten inherited the sculptors of his father's reign who were able to work on a large scale to a remarkably high level of sensitivity in hard stones. He benefited from this. On the other hand, it is clear that he had an insufficient number of skilled relief artists. The standard of carving on wall blocks from Amarna varies greatly, some of the work being of poor quality. The number of locatable sculptor's workshops at Amarna is not particularly large. They form part of a broad pattern of evidence to suggest that the whole city was one loosely organized workshop serving the court. It is hard to think that other major cities (and there would have been only a few at any one time) did not have this character. But only more archaeology at other places will help to answer the question.

Did Akhenaten's actions--changing the religion, promoting new artistic style, and moving the capital--affect the everyday lives of Egyptians?

The lives of the people of Amarna were dramatically changed by the move to a new location, probably not a convenient or inviting one. It was a bleak strip of desert they had to colonize. The impact that his religion had upon them is one of the Project's research themes. At one end lie the Aten temples and their strange obsession with offering-tables. Are they a sign that a greater degree of public benefit was in Akhenaten's mind? The idea is quite attractive but hard to prove, the evidence in part being the archaeological remains of the offering-cult. At the other end is the fact that Amarna is richer in evidence for domestic religious cults and beliefs than other settlement sites of the period (Ramesside Deir el-Medina excepted) and for the most part they were not centered on Akhenaten's ideas."

http://www.archaeology.org/online/interviews/kemp.html

(where I found interview)