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sign up to Empire Club at www.empirpoduk.com Hello and welcome to Empire with me Anita Arnhem.

And me, William Derrimple.

Now, in the 12th year of his reign, the Pharaoh Aknartan staged the most

spectacular ceremony of his rule. From across the known world, delegations came to the new

capital city of Amarna, bearing tribute, ivory and gold from Nubia, painted pottery from the

Aegean, horses, and lapis lazuli from the kingdoms of the Near East, exotic animals,

bolts of fine cloths, cedarwood from Lebanon, the tomb paintings of Acknarton's officials

recorded in extraordinary detail.

Dozens of figures prostrated before the king and his queen,

the rays of the Aten pouring down on all of them,

Acknarton and Nefertiti, at the absolute zenit of their power.

The revolution triumphant.

It was also, as it turned out, the last great moment. Within a year, the deaths would begin. Within five

years, Ackhannaten himself would be dead. Within two decades, his city would be abandoned,

his name erased from every single monument in Egypt, and the priests he had suppressed.

Well, they would have taken their revenge so thoroughly, so entirely, that he would be remembered in later Egyptian records when he was remembered at all as the criminal of Acknarton.

Eric Klein brought us the world Acknarton was born into.

Lloyd Llewellyn Jones brought us the theology of what he built.

Today, the story of how it all fell apart.

And there is no better guide to that story than our guest,

...