Dating the Amarna Period in Egypt: Did a Solar Eclipse Inspire Akhenaten?

For many years, I have been interested in the ‘Heretic Pharaoh ’ Akhenaten of the 18th Dynasty who instituted worship of the sun (Aten) as the only god. I have speculated whether he might have been influenced by witnessing (or hearing first-hand reports of) a total eclipse of the sun, which he might have interpreted as the death and resurrection of the god, just before or soon after his accession to the throne. In Egyptian mythology, a royal succession is likened to the death of the old king Osiris to join the nightly journey of the sun through the underworld, and the rising of his son Horus to rule as king in the world of the living. The chronology of his reign has not been accurately established, but the period of interest is sometime in the 14th Century BC. Possible circumstantial evidence. The work of The Akhenaten Temple Project (1) has recovered inscriptions referring by name to a number of temples or shrines in the complex of structures built by Akhenaten at Karnak during his early years. The Gem-pa-Aten, translated to mean the ‘rediscovery ’ or ‘finding ’ of the Aten, was built to celebrate a heb-sed festival or ‘jubilee ’ and was located within a very large enclosure. A typical heb-sed included a number of ceremonies to revitalize or rejuvenate Pharaoh, and the walls of the Gem-pa-Aten are decorated with scenes of Akhenaten