Russians so wanted to purge themselves of the memory of dictator Joseph Stalin after his rule that they let Stalingrad revert to its original name, Volgograd.

Ancient Egyptians tried to do much the same with the man researchers now think was the father of King Tut.

King Akhenaten was a hero or heretic, “depending on where you place him,” said Darlene Brooks Hedstrom, associate professor of history at Wittenberg University.

A Fulbright Scholar who has done excavations in Christian ruins in Egypt, Brooks Hedstrom said she thinks the researchers have made “a good case” in arguing that a mummy long referred to as “John Doe” holds the remains of King Akhenaten.

She considers it the most astonishing result of the research that has been reported on the Discovery Channel and is discussed in an article in the Feb. 17, 2010, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Making an impact

A Pharoah in the “New Kingdom” period of 1550-1070 B.C., Akhenaten is a lightning-rod figure because “he breaks tradition in a phenomenal way,” Brooks Hedstrom said.

“Some say Akhenaten is the first real individual” because of his radical breaks with the past, she explained. “One thing he does is he puts away the other gods and elevates one God,” Aten, she said, “and puts forth a form of monotheism.”

Some argue the change was the result of personal belief, Brooks Hedstrom said. “Some say he’s against old deities as a power move against the old priests.

“He himself becomes the high priest or the Aten,” she added, and builds a new capital city and religious center — the equivalent of relocating a power center like Washington, D.C.

That city, Armana, doubles as the name for the time of Akhenaten’s rule, a period associated with a second radical change in Egyptian culture — the way people’s figures are drawn and represented.

Akin to the “glam” period of rock ’n’ roll, when David Bowie and other men dressed in gender-blending ways, “Armana art shows elongated bodies and bulbous hips and feminine qualities to the male body,” Brooks Hedstrom said.

She said some speculate it was Akhenaten’s attempt to reconnect with a religious tradition emphasizing a male role in fertility, something attributed to females in most early cultures.

In addition to those who debate whether Akhenaten was the first individual or a “wild radical,” she says, there are those who say that, in a parallel to Stalin, “he became an intolerant ruler.”

Burying the past

That he was rejected after death for some reason is of little doubt.

Just as Stalingrad was changed back to Volgograd, the apparent son who started out as King Tutenkhaten changed his name to Tutenkhamun after his father’s death, abandoning his father’s god, Aten, for the traditional god, Amun.

Egyptians also destroyed the city of Armana after Akhenaten’s passing and rewrote history by writing him out.

“That in itself reflects an Egyptian commitment to obliterate his memory,” Brooks Hedstrom said.

The recent findings will close off some areas of thought and speculation about the period.

Evidence that the hole in King Tut’s skull was likely made during the embalming process will eliminate “this whole narrative of intrigue” about motives for what some thought was evidence of his murder, Brooks Hedstrom said.

“Now we have a sickly young man who tried to restore things and just didn’t live long enough,” she said.

But with the thought that Tut is Akhenaten’s son, she said, “we can start considering the grooming (for leadership) that has taken place — and there hasn’t been much speculation about that.”

Brooks Hedstrom said the research also confirms the royal family’s practice of incest, an apparent attempt to keep a pure blood line and indicates that Akhenaten may have had a special relationship with Queen Nefertiti, a famous Egyptian figure.

She advises the public to stay tuned.

“Excavations continue at Amarna,” she said. “All this is tentative and ongoing and every changing in some ways.”

Ancient mysteries, it seems, will be with us for some time.