The ancient Egyptian name of El-`Amarna, roughly halfway between Cairo and Luxor. Here, on land that had never been inhabited before, pharaoh Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten of the 18th Dynasty built his residence and called it Akhetaten, 'Horizon of the Aten'. The area was marked out by him using a series of boundary stelae. In the texts written on them the king declares that he will never expand beyond these boundaries and that if he or his queen Nefertiti were to die elsewhere, their bodies should be transported back to Akhetaten to be buried there. After the death of Akhenaten, Akhetaten was abandoned as the residence. The area only remained occupied for a few decades. Excavations have been going on in Akhetaten since the end of the nineteenth century. In addition to the royal tomb, located in a remote valley, a number of tombs of high officials have been found there. Almost none of them have been finished and only a very few were ever used (undoubtedly the result of the fact that the city was so quickly abandoned). Among the tombs is one for Ay, who later became pharaoh himself. The remains of the city itself have also been uncovered, with temples, palaces and extensive living quarters. With the help of the many finds it has proved possible to reconstruct life in an ancient Egyptian town. It has been estimated that between 20,000 and 50,000 people lived here.