Amarna

Amarna
(Tell el Amarna, el-Till el-Amarna, Egyptian: Akhet-Aten)
(27°38' N 30°53'E)

The capital city of king Akhenaten (about 1351-1334 BC), founded in his 6th year. The city was abandoned shortly after the king died.

map of Amarna, published by Petrie; area \| city \| in Egypt		the royal tomb		some private houses excavated at Amarna
	paintings found in different buildings		the cuneiform tablets		faience and glass workshops

research and excavations at Amarna:

1714: the French Jesuit priest Claude Sicard describes a boundary stela.
1798-1799: the Napoleonic expedition visited the site of Amarna; they produce a map of the city.
1824, 1826: Gardner Wilkinson (an English Egyptologist) visited the site twice and identified it as the classical 'Alabastron' of Roman authors.
1843, 1845: the Prussian expedition under Karl Richard Lepsius visited the site and recorded and published many scenes and inscriptions from the tombs
1887: a woman discovered nearly four hundred clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform script - the Amarna Letters, international diplomatic correspondence from the time of Akhenaten
1891-1892: Alessandro Barsanti of the Egyptian Antiquities Service cleared the king's tomb at Amarna
1891-1892: Petrie excavated parts of the city
1892: Howard Carter visited the royal tomb and copied and published some of the scenes
1903-1908: Norman de Garis Davies published the private tombs of Amarna in six volumes (Davies 1903; Davies 1905a; Davies 1905b; Davies 1906; Davies 1908a; Davies 1908b)
1907-1914: The Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (DOG - German Oriental Society) excavated parts of the city. In 1912 they found the famous head of Nefertiti (now in Berlin)
1921-1936: Excavations of the Egypt Exploration Society (EES) under the direction of several scholars (Thomas Eric Peet, Leonard Woolley, Francis Newton, Henri Frankfort, J.D.S. Pendlebury)
since 1977: Excavations directed by Barry J. Kemp for the Egypt Exploration Society