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Akhenaten’s artistic and religious reforms were radical indeed, but they were not the most consequential aspect of his plan. In the fifth year of this reign, the pharaoh announced his intention to move the entire Egyptian court to a city he called “Akhetaten”, or “The Horizon of the Aten”, located at Tell el-Amarna in Middle Egypt. Thebes was well established as the city of Amen, and Akhenaten claimed that his god required a capital built on virgin land. The foundation of the site was marked by sixteen ornate stelae, now known as the Boundary Stelae, whose inscriptions justify the move, establish strict geographical boundaries and proclaim that Akhenaten is the Aten’s only representative on Earth.<ref>Williamson, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology: 8</ref>

It is hard to imagine how such a plan would have been received, yet it appears that most of the Theban elite did relocate to Tell el-Amarna. However there is evidence that they did not go quietly. Speeches recorded on the boundary stelae serve as responses to what appears to be derision from the elite toward Akhenaten’s religion and kingship.<ref>Williamson, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology: 8</ref> However resistant they may have been, most of the court did relocate and some such as the king’s advisor Parennefer even invested in new tombs at the city’s necropolis. <ref>Williamson, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology: 8</ref> Ultimately their commitment to his cause was fleeting. The site was abandoned shortly after his death c. 1332 BCE. <ref>Parcak, Sarah. "The Panehsy Church Project, 2006". Amarna Project. Web. 5 November, 2015</ref>.

For these reforms Akhenaten has been called “the world’s first idealist and the world’s first individual” <ref>Breasted, A History of Egypt, 392</ref> but he has also been called a heretic. <ref>Redford, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 269: 1</ref> Whatever his intentions were it can be said that Akhenaten’s reforms were severe and extreme, but ultimately brief. The religion of Akhenaten was forgotten almost immediately after his death, his city abandoned, his name chiseled from temple walls and the Aten virtually erased from living memory <ref>Hornung, 44.</ref> It would be three thousand years before Akhenaten’s story would spark public interest once again.