In 1887 a woman In Tel el-Amarna found some clay tablets covered in Akkadian cuneiform. When observed by Jules Oppert, a French assyriologist, he concluded that they were fake. However, that didn’t convince others. About 400 clay tablets were eventually found, and they realized that the artifacts were from the time of Akhenaten, a pharaoh that ruled 35 centuries earlier. In addition to the clay tablets found in Tel el-Amarna, there was also a sculptured head of queen Nefertiti, The Hymn of Aten, 
which Akhenaten wrote himself, and many depictions of Akhenaten and Nefertite worshiping the sun god. There was a dramatic difference in the art depicting Akhenaten with his wife, Nefertiti, and their children sitting together and enjoying themselves. This was completely different than the canon which always had the pharaoh looking straight ahead, with his left foot forward, and fists clenched to the side. The statues of Akhenaten were very unflattering to him.
To understand the history of Amarna, it is necessary to learn about the man who built it. Akhenaten was a most unusual Pharaoh in many ways. He promoted the Aten as chief deity of Egypt, possibly to lessen the authority of the priests. It is speculated that he was the predecessor of modern monotheism. As Pharaoh, he was the sole link between the people and the Aten. He also issued orders for the temples of "false" gods to be desecrated. As you might expect, this probably did not endear him to the priesthood or the populace, many of whom probably still worshipped Amun. To support the religion, he built a new capital which was devoted to Aten. He called the new city Akhetaten "the horizon of Aten." He had his city built in middle Egypt on a site not tainted by the worship of other gods. At around Year 6 in his reign he moved to Amarna, the ancient name being Akhenaten, with his court and family, including wife Nefertiti.
At the height of Akhenaten's reign, the city had a population of over 20,000. There is evidence that he was content to live in his well-guarded city with his family and ignore his other principalities. His co-regency with Smenhkhare might have allowed him the freedom to do this. The arts flourished under his reign. The new wave in art and the beautiful composition "Hymn to Aten" are testaments to this idea. The stylization in the surviving reliefs and sculptures is extremely unique and has spurred many discussions about Akhenaten himself.
How his reign ended is unknown. After Akhenaten died, the next pharaoh changed the religion back to polytheism, moved the capital back to Thebes, the original capital. Later Pharaohs attempted to erase all memories of Akhenaten, including dismantling his temples and city, and obliterating his name on reliefs.
The physical aspects of Tel El-Amarna are as interesting as the heretic king himself. The area is covered by sand and filled with ruins of temples, palaces and houses. There are more then 25 tombs at the base of the cliff front. Six are located on the north side and 19 on the south. The evidence found in Tel El-Amarna is very interesting. There was nothing there before Akhenaten built Akhetaten and, since the capital moved back to Thebes quickly after his death, the site can be dated specifically to a narrow period.
The name Amarna is also used to describe the period of time including Akhenaten and his kin, the most well known of which is Tutankhamun. Howard Carter and Flinders Petrie, two of the best-known archaeologists in history, have excavated at this site.
Amarna remains a source of disagreement with many scholars. It seems the controversy Akhenaten caused in life continues long after his death.
