Welcome to the Amarna Project
The ancient Egyptian city of Akhetaten (modern Amarna) was the short-lived capital built by the pharaoh Akhenaten and abandoned shortly after his death (c. 1332 BCE). Here, Akhenaten pursued his vision of a society dedicated to the cult of one god, the power of the sun (the Aten). Amarna is also the best preserved and most accessible city from ancient Egypt. It offers the key to understanding a unique chapter in the history of religious experience, and of what it was like to be an ancient Egyptian. The Amarna Project (British Mission to Tell el-Amarna) works, with the permission of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism & Antiquities, to:
- Safeguard Amarna through preservation, protection and outreach programs.
- Support researchers and the wider community, locally and internationally, through the creation of public, educational and academic resources, and opportunities for collaboration and engagement.
- Further knowledge of Akhenaten, his city and its people, and of Amarna as a contemporary heritage site.
Supporting Amarna
Amarna is under increasing threat from urban and agricultural growth. As the Amarna Project assists with conservation, outreach and research, you too can join a community of supporters helping to protect this unique heritage site through a one-off or regular gift to the Amarna Trust or the Amarna Research Foundation.
Latest news
Akhenaten's statuary
Congratulations to Kristin Thompson and Marsha Hill on their 2-volume monograph Statuary from Royal Buildings at Amarna: Its Creation and Contexts.
This publication is the result of many years of study of statue fragments at Amarna and in museums worldwide. To quote Prof. Aidan Dodson:
These volumes present for the first time the full extent of Akhenaten’s sculptural programme, much of it painstakingly reconstructed from the myriad fragments to which so many pieces of its art were later reduced.
Published by the Egypt Exploration Society, the volumes are a fundamental reference on the art of the Amarna period.
In the field, spring 2025
The Amarna Project was back in the field through April and May 2025.
In the dig house, the team studied materials from the Great Aten Temple, cemeteries, housing areas, Maru Aten and the Workmen’s Village.
On site, our focus was on re-clearing and re-recording the house of vizier Nakht, first excavated in 1922 and now heavily threatened by illegal encroachment. This work forms part of a wider survey of houses excavated in the early 1900s, funded by the American Research Center in Egypt.
Stay tuned for an update on the 2025 season in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.
Amarna's ancient industries
From March 2025, the project Craft interactions in a New Kingdom industrial landscape (Egypt, 1550–1069BCE) led by Drs Frederik Rademakers (British Museum) and Anna Hodgkinson (Freie Universität Berlin) is exploring interactions between high temperature technologies in New Kingdom Egypt, focusing on Amarna.
The project takes an interdisciplinary approach combining archaeological materials analysis, excavation and experimentation.
The work is funded by the German Research Foundation and the Arts and Humanities Research Council and will run for 3 years.
Working in the suburbs
Prof. Paul Nicholson writes:
This volume … will be of interest to all those working in the areas of craft activity and domestic space as well as to general readers wishing to learn more about the lives of the citizens of Akhetaten.
