Christian Community Reinhabited Abandoned City of Amarna

AMARNA, EGYPT—The city of Amarna was built by the pharaoh Akhenaten in 1370 b.c. to be the new capital of Egypt. His decision to move the royal court from Thebes and impose worship of a single deity, the sun god Aten, is one of the most controversial episodes in Egyptian history. When Akhenaten’s son Tutankhamun reversed his father’s polices, it was thought that the site of Amarna was abandoned forever. According to a La Brújula Verde report, however, new evidence suggests that parts of the site were reinhabited by Christian populations in the fifth and sixth century a.d. Rather than reoccupy the ruins of houses and temples, a community of monks converted caves and rock-cut tombs at the site into dwellings, churches, and monasteries. Excavations also revealed fragments of pottery that originated in places as far away as Tunisia and Syria, indicating that this Christian enclave did not live in isolation, but maintained trade contacts with other regions. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Minia Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research. To read about a tomb at Amarna that some scholars believe could have been the resting place of Akhenaten's wife, go to "Lost Tombs: Nefertiti, Great Royal Wife and Queen of Egypt."