# Akhetaten is founded as a new capital with Nefertiti’s names on boundary and domestic cult scenes

Date: 1346

## The fact

Akhetaten (Amarna) was founded as a new capital in [Akhenaten](/people/akhenaten)’s reign, with [Nefertiti](/people/nefertiti)’s names and images on boundary contexts and in domestic Aten shrines. Conventional dating uses the mid-1340s BCE.

## Context

Moving a capital is a political-religious act. Household shrines showing the couple and daughters are evidence of an intended new social cult. The later abandonment is a separate Fact of reversal.

Nefertiti is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Amarna Project site publication and the Met essay independently describe the city’s foundation and household cult.

Official or archival record: The Amarna Project (https://www.amarnaproject.com/; Amarna Project / University of Cambridge).

## Significance

Foundation and abandonment must not be one Fact. Abandonment is the erasure row already stored.

## What is established and what is not

Established: the new city names and shows her. Not established: that she chose the site alone.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Nefertiti: https://factrail.ai/people/nefertiti

## Drivers

- Social Cohesion: https://factrail.ai/drivers/social-cohesion

## Sources

- https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/amar/hd_amar.htm
- https://www.amarnaproject.com/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/eg-akhetaten-founded-queen-present