9. Akhenaten is regarded as the most widely reviled of the Egyptian Pharaohs
Akhenaten was a pharaoh of the 18th dynasty who ruled more than 13 centuries before the Common Era. Also known as Amenhotep IV, the name under which he reigned in the early years of his rule, Akhenaten drew the ire of his subjects by commanding a semi-monotheistic religion centered on worship of the god Aten. His subjects, polytheistic for centuries, did not welcome his initiatives. The result was that Akhenaten, whom some believe to be the father of Tutankhamen, was banished from Egyptian history following his death at the end of a reign of 17 years. Monuments and memorials which he had had constructed were destroyed, and references to him were removed from records. He would have been forgotten forever had the site he had built for the worship of Aten not been discovered in the 19th century. In 1907 his mummy was discovered, and in recent years DNA analysis has established that the mummy was the father of the man known as King Tut. Possibly the most famous of the ancient pharaohs were fathered by the most hated. That hatred was large because he had the temerity to tamper with the religious beliefs of his subjects.