QUEEN ON SCREEN: The royal couple, Akhenaten and his Queen Nefertiti, resplendent in their distinctive regalia and unique physiognomy, perform in dignified obeisance an act of adoration to the Aten -- the one god they worshipped. Aten was represented as a sun-disc with bountiful rays that dominate the scene.

Historians credit Akhenaten with being the first recorded man in history to initiate a monotheistic religion. His legacy, in the words of writer Ahmed Othman, whose controversial best-seller Moses and Akhenaten is the basis of the new Hollywood mega-production, Nefertiti, soon to be filmed on location at the Egyptian Media Production City, lingers on in the three great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Love, betrayal and monotheism