Hi, I'm a year 12 student and I'm taking the extension history course which involves a major work where we have to be the historian. We can choose any topic we would like to do, and I've chosen Akhenaten. I need to think of a question/topic to debate in my essay and at the moment I'm tossing up between the Moses theory, and the Oedipus theory.

I personally know more about the Oedipus theory, but it would be great to get some feed back on what you think would be better to do, and which one I could get the most sources on.

Thanks

You could get info on either....reallllly. Akhenaten is very controversial so there is always some new theory going around about him....

Me, myself, I believe in the Moses theory...The Oedipus theory has always seemed toooo far-flung to me....(So what if Frued said he had an Oedipus complex.... ) But since you're doing a debate....Couldn't you argue over which one makes more sense....I did the same in a paper I wrote for my English class, except I picked whether he suffered from Marfan's or Freohlich's...

I am just tossing out suggestions. Feel free to ignore me if you wish.

If you want to investigate the links between Akhenaten and Oedipus you will need to read Velikovsky and look at some Freud - good luck:)

Be careful with each of them. Velikovsky is often accused of ignoring facts that do not fit his conclusion and "exagerating" or "inventing" other facts. Similarly, freud had no real understanding of Egyptian history and although his conception of the split between the id, ego and superego was ground-breaking, many of his other theories (including the oedipus complex) are rather dubious.

There is no evidence that Akhenaten killed his father. He buried him with full honours and behaved like a normal pharaoh for the first couple of years. Furthermore, Akhenaten is often displayed being affectionate with Nefertiti and their children and there is no evidnce of a sexual relationship with his mother. She remained powerful, and it is quite possible that he loved her greatly, but the rest is pure conjecture.

NB the link is at least partly based on the fact that Oedipus means "swollen feet" and Akhenaten was depicted with exagerated limbs. Not very conclusive.

nice post----------