Egyptian religion provided believers with comfort through the many assurances that it provided. It helped to explain the unexplainable – the great mysteries of death and birth. The gods were approachable. Their human, or partially human, form and their behavior made them familiar. Faith supported the structure of Egyptian society by providing a paternal king who was both godlike and – in theory at least – accessible and protective. It is not difficult to see how so many features of Egyptian religion stayed generally static for hundreds of centuries, reinforcing a conservative society in a potentially threatening world. Yet, there was one brief historical moment – the Amarna Period – in which the Egyptians' beliefs were challenged and disrupted, a moment when religious philosophy and practice were altered to introduce an apparently far less appealing and less functional set of beliefs. This negative appraisal of ancient Egypt's religious “revolution” is not just a modern opinion, for the new religion did not outlive its promulgator by more than a few years. The Amarna religion, its precepts, and its actual impact on Egyptian society are still among the most debated topics in Egyptology.

The “Amarna Period” (roughly 1350–1325 BC) refers to the reigns of Amunhotep IV (who changed his name to Akhenaten) (Fig. 77) and his two successors, Smenkhkare and Tutankhamun.