What was the Amarna Period?

The short answer to that question is the period in which King Akhenaten moved his capital to an area north of what is today Thebes and south of what is today Cairo. Akhenaten came to power in around 1353 B.C., his father was the famous Amenhotep III and and his mother, Queen Tiye. Akhenaten is considered to be Amenhotep IV, except for the fact that he changed his name.

Shortly after his reign began he adopted the deity, Aten, as the only divine source of God and changed his name to Akhenaten. He moved the capital of Kemet from the south, in Upper Kemet, to the middle of the country. He named the city, Akhetaten and lived there from 1349 B.C. to 1336 B.C. The name of this period should really be the Akhenaten Period or Period of Akhetaten (after the city’s name), but the excavators of his city named the area after the village that it’s near Amarna.

The name Amarna was adopted by the excavators of the area and it represents the modern area that the site is located near.

The Akhenaten Period represented a departure from traditional art, it also sough to remove the significance of Kemet’s former deity and to focus the attention on the deity Aten.

Amarna (ca. 1349-1336 B.C.

Amenhotep IV / Akhenaten (ca. 1353–1336 B.C.)

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/amar/hd_amar.htm

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544675