"In the middle of the fourteenth century BCE, Egypt's polytheistic religion was suddenly attacked by its most traditional upholder, the pharaoh. The short-lived revolution which followed continues to be as disturbing and enigmatic as the "heretic king" Akhenaten who set it in motion. Was Akhenaten the first monotheist, as he is widely reputed to be? Or was he an opportunist, possibly even an atheist, who cloaked a political revolution in religious terms? Modern readers will now find it easier to address such questions by using this wide-ranging collection of documents, many of them never before translated into English, in which the full sweep of one of ancient history's most fascinating periods lives anew"--Back cover.