Akhenaten Resurrects the Matriarch
Scrolling through
academic search, title words for Akhenaten are revolutionary, poet, monotheism,
new theories, philosophical thought in ancient Egypt, religion of light and
image of divine couple. These title descriptions unravel the mystic character
of Akhenaten. Examining the colossal figure of Akhenaten, it is clear his rein
demands a new identity for leadership. Before Akhenaten, the expressions of
pharaohs in art is rigid, authoritative and inflexible. Akhenaten’s rule
expressed in art is dynamic, captivating and esoteric. The appearance of
Akhenaten conveyed in art is extraterrestrial. His long face, elongated
pinecone head, wide almond shaped eyes, pronounced chin and unearthly ambience.
Distinctly, he is welcoming in art another side of human integrated in a cosmic
apprenticeship. Though, much of Akhenaten’s religious, social and culture
revolution was deconstructed and the prior model for Egyptian leadership
restored, Akhenaten’s style of art captured the mystic matriarch of humankind.
For example, a relief sculpture of a royal couple in the Armana style expresses
the humble, reflective, harmonious gathering with nature and the other. This
showcases the intuitive, compassionate and gentle facets of humankind less
competitive, oppressive and dominating, which are the aspects of humankind that
develop the patriarchal age with hierarchal bureaucracy, social and economic
division and withholding of resources.
The
mystic matriarch represents the right hemisphere of the brain and the left side
of the body. Inside each person is a mystic matriarch, however, for many it is
oppressed, inactive or dormant because collectively humankind is patriarchal
and has been since the rise of the rigid and authoritative pharaoh of Egypt.
The right hemisphere is art awareness, creativity, imagination, intuition,
insight, holistic thought (health is self-realized), music awareness, 3-D forms
and left-hand control. The feminine is the vulture in Egyptian culture,
symbolic for spherical intelligence, well-rounded with higher perspective,
spiritual knowledge and the understanding on the relationship everything has
with each other. The Patriarch is the snake in Egyptian culture, symbolic for
flat or linear intelligence, static with a practical perspective, mechanical knowledge
and the understanding that life is built into consistent forms and patterns.
The grounded patriarch is the left hemisphere of the brain and the right side
of the body. The left hemisphere is analytic thought, logic, language, reasoning,
science and math, writing, number skills, right-hand control. The grounded
patriarch creates structured religion and diplomacy while the mystic matriarch
creates nourishment for the person through poetry, philosophy, healing, social
involvement, empowerment and nature. For example, the grounded patriarch is the
cup, consolidated, consistent, reliable and durable and the mystic matriarch is
the water that fills the cup giving nutrients to the cup.
Knowledge
on the mystic matriarch and the grounded patriarch is relevant because
Akhenaten shook up the stiff patriarchal model by welcoming the creative,
poetic and esoteric expression of the matriarch. According to Vedic tradition,
there is a planetary wheel consisting of phases of human consciousness and
within those phases are eras and ages bringing progress, change and the next
frontier. The wheel is approximately twenty-six thousand years following the
zodiac progression, Aries to Pisces. Now, this isn’t academically followed
because it goes beyond the accepted chronology of human history. However,
following the Vedic tradition, there are periods of time known as the Golden
Age, Bronze Age, Dark Age and Silver Age. These ages represent the rise and
fall of human consciousness through higher levels of creative capacity and
lower levels of creative capacity. The patriarchal age streams through the
Bronze and Dark Age, which is the lowering of human creative capacity. Continuing
with the Vedic tradition, the matriarch represents the higher levels of
creative capacity known as the Golden and Silver Age and, like the shifting
nostril breath dominance from right nostril to left nostril, which symbolizes
the shifting through logic thinking and artistic contemplation, the wheel
cycles through matriarch and patriarch for balance. It isn’t healthy to be too
ridged and lack imagination for creative problem solving or too imaginative and
lack the mechanics to turn ideas into applied science. This is the collaboration
of Yin and Yang or the feminine and masculine interaction for balance.
Firstly,
what are modern examples of matriarchal and patriarchal leadership in art? Lady
of Liberty statue, Lady Justice Statue, statue of Buddha, statue of Krishna or Radha
and for the patriarch: statue of President Washington, Mount Rushmore, and
portrait of J. P Morgan. The distinct difference between the matriarch and
patriarch is that the matriarch symbolizes empowerment through community
involvement, environmental/humanitarian progress and integrity while the
patriarch symbolizes scholarship, authority, democracy and doctrine beliefs. Now,
works of art that showcase Akhenaten’s leadership in ancient Egypt are Two
Princesses and Akhenaten and Nefertiti.
Two Princesses is a
portrait from the Armana period. It depicts two young children who are a part
of a larger portrait including the royal family. The two children interact in a
friendly manner, wearing many bead necklaces and bracelets, and large earrings
with pendant bead strings and the entire image is painted in rusty orange red.
The peculiarity is the elongated heads. In previous Egyptian art, there is a
focus on realism and body proportion. The Armana period heavily elongates the
head of Akhenaten and his royal family. This style of art emphasizes
intelligence which is never expressed in royal art before Akhenaten. Also, the
children carry the same pouch like belly that is a distinct feature of
Akhenaten. The pouch like belly belongs solely to the Armana period which
brings awareness to the lower belly. The Armana period is showing the royal
children as having an intelligence as well as second brain or fertility. Again,
previous style of art was uptight, angular and serious. However, this strange
style of showcasing higher intelligence and awareness of the gut brings
acceptance to the feminine nature.
Iconography in ancient
Egypt is encoded. Egypt heavily used symbolizing to convey complex ideas that
still today are not deciphered in the totality. For example, the scarab beetle
is a precious gem symbolic for the right and left hemispheres of the brain. It
represents the collaboration between both hemispheres, masculine and feminine,
or Chi and Li, that brings equilibrium and divine understanding. Its iconographic
meaning is harmony with self, others and nature. Another example is the crook,
frail and staff. Crook represents balance of emotions, frail is balance of the
mind, staff is balance of the body. Once balance of the body, emotions and the
mind is achieved consciousness is formed.
The iconographic meaning
for an elongated head is higher creative capacity that is worshipped in
Mangbetu of the Congo in Africa where head binding is practiced to give respect
to the Gods. Previous Pharaohs reveal domination over material as Godly.
Akhenaten reveals high creative capacity as Godly. According to the Vedic
tradition, the magic of the brain is Ida or left channel, Pingala or right
channel and Sushmana or central channel. Ida is white, feminine, cold, the moon
and the left nostril. Pingala is red, masculine, hot and the right nostril.
Sushmana is the central channel where kundalini or serpent fertility can rise
up the center of the body and energize the mind, body and spirit. When the
mind, body and spirit is energized, awakened or radiant there is consciousness.
This is a yogic applied science of obtaining higher creative capacity. And the
two princesses possessing elongated heads asks the view to decipher the higher
creative capacity Akhenaten leads.
The pouch like belly is
depicting the second brain or hara, known as the soul home of intuition. For
example, during hunting and gathering time, the gut was an intuition that would
help people regulate, nourish and heal the body through food out in the wild.
Today the gut intuition isn’t practiced and the leading reason for malnourished
body/mind and energy deficiency. However, the pouch like belly gives awareness
to how important hara is for a person’s physical, emotional and mental success.
The second brain or gut is like roots to a tree receiving nutrients from the
soil, pulling it through its trunk and circulating it through the entire tree.
The gut is sending eighty million neurons to the brain, can act with the brain
and independently of the brain. When the gut is malnourished from foods
completely stripped of nutrients it affects the higher function of the brain.
Hara is the most primal brain. It reveals that fertility of the body comes from
nutrients and the elongated head is the evolution of the serpent or kundalini
energy that purifies the brain.
Culturally, ancient Egypt
is still being unraveled. However, what is becoming more prominent is that
Akhenaten may have been the true mystic of the Egyptian dynastic period. Akhenaten
places family enjoyment and reverence above material control. In previous
depictions of Pharaohs, family enjoyment is less important and domination over material
is more prominent. Akhenaten brings the feminine nature to rulership by welcoming
friendship, community and connection to nature scene in “Facsimile painting
from the 'Green Room' in the North Palace at Amarna,” “Scene of Fishing and
Fowling,” “Statue of two men and a boy that served as a domestic icon,” “ Horses
Harnessed to a Chariot,” “ Grapevine,” “Lotus Flowers” and “Walk in the
Garden.” In each of these artworks there is connection to nature and community.
The two princesses are depicted as having affection and care for each other.
They appear content in each other’s presence and tender. All these attributes
belong to the feminine, revealing that the Armana culture is dedicated to honoring
the feminine of higher creative capacity and community involvement.
The analysis of the
relief sculpture of Akhenaten and Nefertiti reveals only the heads of Akhenaten
and Nefertiti looking at each other. Akhenaten has a slightly larger head and appears
to be closer in perspective. Nefertiti has the elongated head and they both
wear the royal head dress with a cobra curled and upright. The iconographic
meaning of serpent has global depth. Everywhere the serpent, either in Eastern
or Western traditions represents fertility, the feminine energy and creation.
Placing the serpent on the head dress gives recognition to the creative force
that governs the life of every living thing. In Hindu tradition, the egg of the
serpent is called Garba in sandscript. It is the aura or energy field of a
person and like an egg, seeds and carries a person like a womb. This womb has a
golden field which showcases that every person lives within their own field of
wisdom or cosmic knowledge. The depth of ancient Egypt and especially Akhenaten
never ends and much of it is mystic and requires a level of open mindedness to
make connections. However, looking through cultural eyes of many surrounding
areas to ancient Egypt such as the Indus Valley, the cultures leading into
today, everything influences each other. Every culture has a root connection
like the serpent, hara or gut and the body, mind and spirit connection.
In contrast to earlier
Egyptian art, heavily patriarchal, is The Palette of Narmer during the early
dynastic period and Khafre from Giza during the fourth dynasty. Leadership for
Narmer in the Palette of Narmer is forceful, strict and demanding. Narmer uses
strict control to unify upper and lower Egypt. Khafre is depicted as serious,
unexpressive and concentrated on controlling the dynasty. The contrast reveals
that there are two forms of leadership on this planet. One focuses on control
through structure and discipline, which is an outward order and the other
focuses on the inner fulfillment of the individual and community, which is an
inward emotional and psychological wellbeing. The bureaucratic and business
mindset of the masculine and the sharing and caring mindset of the feminine together
bring balance to law and order as well as integrity and wellbeing. And,
Akhenaten being an example of the ancient matriarchal leader.
The matriarch like the elephant
matriarch has wisdom to lead the young ones safely across vast distances to the
water hole using her sense of intuition and tribe to protect the young ones.
“When a man falls, a single man falls, but when a woman falls a whole
generation falls,” Guru Jagat. Male birds compete to make the most beautiful
nest for the female bird and male whales race to win the female whale, which is
evidence of the outstanding value the matriarch has on planet Earth. But,
culturally today women only know higher creative capacity through procreation. Akhenaten
was a man but brought dimensions to women capacity to create through community,
nature and honoring of the self. He is one pharaoh of many but most pronounced
because he brought Chi, life force, to ancient Egypt and this Chi either it be
energy, nirvana, Chi, Gi, prana or higher creative capacity, brings creative
solution when all is dark and darkening.
Works Cited
Ancient Teachings
of Tantra and Kundalini Yoga. (2019, April 22). Sushumna, Ida and Pingala:
Nadis of the subtle body. Retrieved from
https://www.tantra-kundalini.com/nadis/
ICH Courier. (2019,
April 22). Garba, a Circle Dance of India. Retrieved from
https://ichcourier.ichcap.org/article/garba-a-circle-dance-of-india/
The Metropolitan
Museum of Art. (2019, April 22). Two Princesses | Nina deGaris Davies |
30.4.135 | Work of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan
Museum of Art. Retrieved from
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/30.4.135/
The Metropolitan
Museum of Art. (2019). Art, Architecture, and the City in the Reign of
Amenhotep IV / Akhenaten (ca. 1353–1336 B.C.) [Artwork]. Retrieved from Tour
Egypt. (2019, April 22). Akhenaten and Nefertiti [Photograph].
Retrieved from http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/picture08022005.htm
Tour Egypt. (2019,
April 22). Akhenaten and Nefertiti [Photograph]. Retrieved from
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/picture08022005.htm
