The topic

The fifty years between the reign of Amenhotep III and that of Tutankhamun (ca. 1375-1325 B.C.) transformed Thebes, the home of national god Amun-Re, several times. 

This talk will provide an overview of those changes and attempt to provide new insights into their political, religious and cultural backgrounds. 

From Amenhotep III's development of a newly conceived Thebes of Amun, to the origins and rise of Amenhotep IV's Aten god, to the proscription of Amun and his divine family during Akhenaten's reign, and then the return of Amun's cult and the king's patronage under the post-Amarna kings through the reign of Tutankhamun, the ways in which Thebes itself was a material display of deeply changing religious beliefs and power bases will be illustrated and discussed.

The speaker 

Dr. Betsy M. Bryan is the Alexander Badawy Professor Emerita of Egyptian Art and Archaeology at Johns Hopkins University, where she taught from 1986 to 2022. Dr. Bryan specializes in the history, art, and archaeology of the New Kingdom in Egypt, ca. 1600-1000 B.C., with a particular emphasis on the 18th Dynasty, ca. 1550-1300 B.C. Her research interests include the organization and techniques of art production as well as the religious and cultural significance of tomb and temple decoration.