Akhenaten, Instagram, AFGHANISTAN

Akhenaten (born Amenhotep) was an Egyptian Pharoah. He came along at a time when Egyptian iconography, all of the dozens of gods, and mythology were quite firmly established. He and his wife Nefertiti (they were King Tut's Mum and Dad)  and the rest of the nation were all getting along swimmingly well there along the banks of the Nile River about 3300 years ago. So along comes this young upstart Pharoah Akhenaten and really turns things upside down. "Right, you lot..." he may have said (or the Ancient Egyptian equivalent, of course. For some reason I'm hearing John Cleese narrate Akhenaten's part in this which is really a bit incongruous, but it works in my head. Get yer own voice if you don't like John.)  "We're getting rid of all these gods, except one. From now on, there will be only one god, right?  We'll call him the one god, Aten."   This period in art history is known as the Amarna period, after the capital city that he built and named.  He was a heretic and perhaps the first monotheistic ruler in history.  The manner in which Akhenaten was depicted has puzzled art historians for years- it was such a radical departure from the norm. For a long time it was thought that Akhenaten had what Abraham Lincoln suffered from, Marfan Syndrome.  The sculptures show him with long neck and fingers, effeminate hips, lips, an elongated skull and a bit of a belly.  Then it was thought that perhaps he had gynecomastia- a condition in which males have enlarged breasts.  Since the discovery of his body in 1907, archaeologists have been able to study his DNA and conclusively rule out Marfan syndrome and gynecomastia.  The current thinking?  Akhenaten himself wanted to be portrayed as divine, both female and male, in one body.  After his death many of the Amarna sculptures were destroyed, and the nation reverted to polytheism.

Fast forward a few thousand years.  I've become quite used to seeing Akhenaten's face, it is very distinctive in Egyptian art history.  One day, while looking at pictures on Instagram for an Advanced Art global art project, one face seemed to scream out at me, so much so that my jaw did the proverbial gob-smacked-hanging-open-thing. I saw a photo of a woman who could be Akhenaten's twin- or perhaps descendent.  The photo is by Rada Akbar, a brilliant photographer in Afghanistan.(Her website is http://www.radaphotography.com/.

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I was so intrigued by the likeness that I spent some time playing with the photo of the woman and a photo of a sculpture of Akhenaten. I cropped, and merged, and documented the merging and cropping.  The results are nothing short of stunning. This young woman in Afghanistan, photographed by Rada Akbar, could be the twin sister of Akhenaten!  The woman's name is Naghm.  She lives in a refugee camp in Kabul.  I desperately want to know her story.  ​

Coming up:  I am going to share this story with the photographer, Rada Akbar.  I'm very curious to know her reaction!

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