Tell Al-Amarna

This residential city was founded by the so called heretic king Akhenaten (Amenohis IV), who decided to worship only one god called Aton in a place where no other god had been worshipped before. Tell Al-Armarna is located some 50 km south of Al-Minya on the east bank of the Nile. Parts of the temples palaces and tombs still stand despite attempts by Haremhab to destroy those monuments after Akhenaten's death.

             

         The Tombs of Tell Al-Armarna
Those 25 rock-cut tombs can be divided into a northern and southern group. Many of them were not finished because of the re-shift of power. the colourful reliefs are famous, because of a newly adopted artistic language of expression, unique to that period. Akhenaton's royal tomb is in a ravine about 13km up Wadi Darb Al-Melek, the valley that divides the northern and southern sections of the cliff.