The Main Chapel at the Amarna Workmen’s Village and its Wall Paintings

by Fran Weatherhead and Barry J. Kemp

Book cover: The Main Chapel at the Amarna Workmen’s Village and its Wall Paintings

Extent: 424 pages

Publisher: Egypt Exploration Society

Subjects: Ancient Egypt

Series: Excavation Memoir

Series volume number: 85

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(December 2007)

ISBN: 9780856981869

Price: $45.00

Out of stock

In the 1980s, the Egypt Exploration Society uncovered a well-preserved private chapel at Amarna’s Workmen’s Village. This volume presents a detailed catalogue of painted plaster fragments, providing insights into Amarna Period beliefs and the Aten cult’s reach beyond the royal court.


In the 1980s the Egypt Exploration Society’s expedition to Amarna discovered a well-preserved private chapel at the Workmen’s Village and the largest that had been built there. Amidst the rubble were many hundreds of fragments of painted plaster fallen from the walls. Over many subsequent years they were recorded, fitted, together and, in the case of some key groups, restored into panels. Here the results are finally presented, as a detailed catalogue that illustrates all fragments of any likely significance, set within descriptions of the chapel building and its archaeological fill. They form a valuable point of reference for the beliefs of people during the Amarna Period. The remarkable lack of attention to Akhenaten’s ideas helps to define the limits of penetration of the Aten cult and its imagery into the lives of people who lived separate from the royal court.

  • By (author) Barry J. Kemp
  • By (author) Fran Weatherhead