Aten

Atenism (or the Amarna heresy) is one of the earliest monotheistic religions, associated above all with the eighteenth dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, better known under the name he later adopted, Akhenaten. In the 14th century BC it was Egypt's state religion for around 20 years, before a return to the traditional gods so comprehensive that the heretic Pharaohs associated with Atenism were erased from Egyptian records. Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... [1] Aten (or Aton) was the disk of the sun in ancient Egyptian mythology, and originally an aspect of Ra. ... Monotheism (in Greek monon = single and Theos = God) is the belief in a single, universal, all-encompassing deity. ... The Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, New Kingdom. ... For other uses, see Pharaoh (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Akhenaten (disambiguation). ... // Overview Events 1344 BCE – 1322 BCE -- Beginning of Hittite empire Rise of the Urnfield culture Significant persons Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt Tutankhamun, Pharaoh of Egypt Suppiliulima, king of the Hittites Moses Inventions, discoveries, introductions Template:DecadesAndYearsBCE Category: ‪14th century BCE‬ ...

Atenist revolution

Pharaoh Akhenaten and his family adoring the Aten

The Aten, the god of Atenism, first appears in texts dating to the 12th dynasty, in The Story of Sinuhe. However, he was considered a relatively obscure sun god and without the Atenist period would barely figure in Egyptian history. Although there are indications that the Aten was becoming more important in the eighteenth dynasty period - notably Amenhotep III's naming of his royal barge as Spirit of the Aten - it was Amenhotep IV who introduced the Atenist revolution, in a series of steps culminating in the official installment of the Aten as the sole god. Painting of the Aten from Amarna The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. ... Painting of the Aten from Amarna The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. ... For other uses, see Akhenaten (disambiguation). ... [1] Aten (or Aton) was the disk of the sun in ancient Egyptian mythology, and originally an aspect of Ra. ... Known rulers, in the History of Egypt, for the Twelfth Dynasty. ... Unsolved problems in Egyptology: Was the Story of Sinuhe a myth or real? If it was real, did Sinuhe abandon his duty or was he a hero? The Story of Sinuhe is set in the time of the Pharaoh Amenemhat I, founder of the 12th dynasty of Egypt, and is... A solar deity is a deity who represents the Sun. ... Nebmaatre The Lord of Truth is Re[2] Nomen Amenhotep Hekawaset Amun is Satisfied, Ruler of Thebes[1] Horus name Kanakht Emkhaimaat The strong bull, appearing in truth Nebty name Semenhepusegerehtawy One establishing laws, pacifying the two lands Golden Horus Aakhepesh-husetiu Great of valour, smiting the Asiatics Consort(s...

Amenhotep IV initially introduced Atenism in Year 4 of his reign, raising the Aten to the status of supreme god, but initially permitting the continued worship of the traditional gods. To emphasise the change, Aten's name was written in the cartouche form normally reserved for Pharaohs, an innovation of Atenism. This religious reformation appears to coincide with the proclamation of a Sed festival, a sort of royal jubilee intended to reinforce the Pharaoh's divine powers of kingship. Traditionally held in the thirtieth year of the Pharaoh's reign, this possibly was a festival in honour of Amenhotep III, who some Egyptologists think had a coregency with his son Amenhotep IV of two to twelve years. For other uses, see Cartouche (disambiguation). ... The sed festival (or heb sed) was an Ancient Egyptian ceremony held to celebrate the continued rule of a pharaoh. ... A Co-regency is the situation where a monarchical position (such as King, Queen, Emperor or Empress), normally held by only a single person, is held by two. ...

Year 5 is believed to mark the beginning of Amenhotep IV's construction of a new capital, Akhetaten (Horizon of the Aten), at the site known today as Amarna. Evidence of this appears on three of the boundary stelae used to mark the boundaries of this new capital. At this time, Amenhotep IV officially changed his name to Akhenaten (Agreeable to Aten) as evidence of his new worship. The date given for the event has been estimated to fall around January 2 of that year. In Year 7 of his reign the capital was moved from Thebes to Akhetaten (near modern Amarna), though construction of the city seems to have continued for two more years. In shifting his court from the traditional ceremonial centres Akhenaten was signalling a dramatic transformation in the locus of religious and political power. Amarna (commonly known as el-Amarna) is the name given to an extensive archaeological site that represents the remains of the capital city built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty (c. ... is the 2nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Thebes Thebes (, Thēbai) is the Greek designation of the ancient Egyptian niwt (The) City and niwt-rst (The) Southern City. It is located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile (). Thebes was the capital of Waset, the fourth Upper Egyptian nome... Amarna The site of Amarna (commonly known as el-Amarna or incorrectly as Tel el-Amarna; see below) (Arabic: العمارنة al-‘amārnä) is located on the east bank of the Nile River in the modern Egyptian province of al-Minya, some 58 km (38 miles) south of the city of...

The move separated the Pharaoh and his court from the influence of the priesthood and from the traditional centres of worship, but his decree had deeper religious significance too — taken in conjunction with his name change, it is possible that the move to Amarna was also meant as a signal of Akhenaten's symbolic death and rebirth. It may also have coincided with the death of his father and the end of the coregency. In addition to constructing a new capital in honor of Aten, Akhenaten also oversaw the construction of some of the most massive temple complexes in ancient Egypt, including one at Karnak and one at Thebes, close to the old temple of Amun. This article is about the Karnak temple complex in Egypt. ... For other uses, see Amun (disambiguation). ...

In Year 9 Akhenaten strengthened the Atenist regime, declaring the Aten not merely the supreme god but actually the only god, a universal deity, and forbidding worship of all others, including the veneration of idols, even privately in people's homes - an arena the Egyptian state had previously not touched in religious terms. Atenism was then based on strict unitarian monotheism, the belief in one single God. Aten was addressed in prayers, such as the Great Hymn to the Aten: "O Sole God beside whom there is none". For the Celtic Frost album, see Monotheist (album) In theology, monotheism (from Greek one and god) is the belief in the existence of one deity, or in the oneness of God. ... This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ... The Great Hymn to the Aten was found in the tomb of Ay, in the rock tombs at Akhetaten. ...

Akhenaten staged the ritual regicide of the old supreme god Amun, and ordered the defacing of Amun's temples throughout Egypt, and of all the old gods. The word for `gods' (plural) was proscribed, and inscriptions have been found in which even the hieroglyph of the word for "mother" has been excised and re-written in alphabetic signs, because it had the same sound in ancient Egyptian as the sound of name of the Theban goddess Mut. Aten's name is also written differently after Year 9, to emphasise the radicalism of the new regime. No longer is the Aten written using the symbol of a rayed solar disc, but instead it is spelt phonetically. For other uses, see Mut (disambiguation). ...

Contrast with traditional Egyptian religion

The impact of Akhenaten's religious reform, albeit introduced in steps, is hard to overstate. It is a measure both of Pharaoh's great power, and of the extraordinary circumstances of the time that an equally shocking and dramatic transformation was achieved even temporarily, for about twenty years.

The context appears to have been an Egypt hit by catastrophe, seemingly abandoned by the old gods: a series of pandemics is known to have occurred throughout the Near East of this period, and some speculate that it could coincide with the eruption of the volcano of Thera, which would have covered much of Egypt in a layer of destructive ash, killing crops and livestock. Certainly, Amenhotep III's construction of over 700 statues to the god of destruction, Set, suggests Atenism as being more than merely the personal whim of Akhenaten, but at least in part a desperate measure on the part of a Pharaoh responsible for the well-being of his kingdom, above all by ensuring a good relationship with the gods. View from the top of Thira Santorini is a small, circular group of volcanic islands located in the Aegean Sea, 75 km south-east of the Greek mainland, (latitude: 35. ... Set, in KV34 Set (also Setekh, Seth, etc) was originally a god of strength, war, storms, foreign lands (and foreigners) and deserts in Egyptian mythology. ...

In this context, Akhenaten carried out a radical program of religious reform which, for a period of about twenty years, largely supplanted the age-old beliefs and practices of the Egyptian state religion, and deposed its religious hierarchy, headed by the powerful priesthood of Amun at Thebes. For fifteen centuries the Egyptians had worshipped and sacrificed to an extended family of gods and goddesses, each of which had its own elaborate system of priests, temples, shrines and rituals. A key feature of these cults was the veneration of images and statues of the gods, which were worshipped in the dark confines of the temples. For other uses, see Amun (disambiguation). ...

The pinnacle of this religious hierarchy was the Pharaoh, who was both king and living god, and the administration of the Egyptian kingdom was thus inextricably bound up with, and largely controlled by, the power and influence of the priests and scribes. Like the abolition of the Russian Orthodox Church in early Communist Russia, Akhenaten's reforms cut away both the philosophical and economic bases of priestly power, abolishing the cults of multiple deities, and with them the large and lucrative industry of sacrifices and tributes that the priests controlled. The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (Russian: ), also known as the Orthodox Christian Church of Russia, is a body of Christians who are united under the Patriarch of Moscow, who in turn is in communion with the other patriarchs and primates of the Eastern Orthodox Church. ... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ...

Initially, Akhenaten presented Aten to the Egyptian people as a variant of the familiar supreme deity Amun-Ra (itself the result of an earlier rise to prominence of the cult of Amun, resulting in Amun becoming merged with the sun god Ra), in an attempt to put his ideas in a familiar religious context. Aten is the name given to the solar disc, whereas the full title of Akhenaten's god was Ra-Horus, who rejoices in the horizon in his name of the light which is in the sun disc. (This is the title of the god as it appears on the numerous stelae which were placed to mark the boundaries of Akhenaten's new capital at Akhetaten.) For other uses, see Amun (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Ra (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Horus (disambiguation). ...

However in Year 9 of his reign Akhenaten declared a more radical version of his new religion by declaring Aten not merely the supreme god, but the only god, and that he, Akhenaten, was the only intermediary between the Aten and his people. He even staged the ritual regicide of Amun, and ordered the defacing of Amun's temples throughout Egypt. In contrast to the old gods, Aten appears primarily to have been seen as a loving and protective god, whose primary goal was not to punish and demand allegiance and sacrifice but to support his people through his presence. Key features of Atenism included a ban on idols and other images of the Aten, with the exception of a rayed solar disc, in which the rays (commonly depicted ending in hands) appear to represent the unseen spirit of Aten. New temples were constructed, in which the Aten was worshipped in the open sunlight, rather than in dark temple enclosures, as the old gods had been.

Although idols were banned - even in people's homes - these were typically replaced by functionally equivalent representations of Akhenaten and his family venerating the Aten, and receiving the ankh (breath of life) from him. The radicalisation of Year 9 (including spelling Aten phonetically instead of using the rayed solar disc) may be due to a determination on the part of Akhenaten to enforce a probable misconception among the common people that Aten was really a type of sun god like Ra. Instead, the idea was reinforced that such representations were representations above all of concepts - of Aten's universal presence - not of physical beings or things. For other uses, see Ankh (disambiguation). ...

The early stage of Atenism appears a kind of henotheism familiar in Egyptian religion, but the later form suggests a proto-monotheism. (For the issue of a link to Jewish monotheism see below.) Henotheism (Greek heis theos one god) is a term coined by Max Müller, to mean devotion to a single God while accepting the existence of other gods. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Amarna art

Styles of art that flourished during this short period are markedly different from other Egyptian art, bearing a variety of affectations, from elongated heads to protruding stomachs, exaggerated ugliness and the beauty of Nefertiti. Significantly, and for the only time in the history of Egyptian royal art, Akhenaten's family was depicted in a decidedly naturalistic manner, and they are clearly shown displaying affection for each other. Greek influence may have resulted in some of the Amarna artistic characteristics.

Artistic representations of Akhenaten usually give him a strikingly feminine appearance, with slender limbs, a protruding belly and wide hips. Other leading figures of the Amarna period, both royal and otherwise, are also shown with some of these features, suggesting a possible religious connotation, especially as some sources suggest that private representations of Akhenaten, as opposed to official art, show him as quite normal. However, according to some controversial theories, the strikingly unusual representations may have been due to non-religious factors - Akhenaten may actually been a woman masquerading as a man, which had been known to happen in Egyptian politics once or twice, or he may have been a hermaphrodite or had some other intersex condition. It is also suggested by Bob Brier, in his book "The Murder of Tutankhamen", that the family suffered from Marfan's syndrome, which is known to cause elongated features, and that this may explain Akhenaten's appearance. For other uses, see Hermaphrodite (disambiguation). ... An intersexual is a person (or individual of any unisexual species) who is born with genitalia and/or secondary sexual characteristics of indeterminate sex, or which combine features of both sexes. ... Marfan syndrome is a connective tissue disorder characterized by unusually long limbs. ...

Decline of Atenism

Crucial evidence about the latter stages of Akhenaten's reign was furnished by discovery of the so-called Amarna Letters. Believed to have been thrown away by scribes after being transferred to papyrus, the letters comprise a priceless cache of incoming clay message tablets sent from imperial outposts and foreign allies. The letters suggest that Akhenaten was obsessed with his new religion, and that his neglect of matters of state was causing disorder across the massive Egyptian empire. The governors and kings of subject domains wrote to beg for gold, and also complained of being snubbed and cheated. Also discovered were reports that a major plague pandemic was spreading across the ancient Near East. This pandemic appears to have claimed the life of Akhenaten's main wife (Nefertiti) and several of his six daughters, which may have contributed to a declining interest on the part of Akhenaten in governing effectively. EA 161, letter by Aziru, leader of Amurru, (stating his case to pharaoh), one of the Amarna letters in cuneiform writing on a clay tablet. ... Bust of Nefertiti from Berlins Altes Museum. ...

With Akhenaten's death, the Aten cult he had founded almost immediately fell out of favor due to pressures from the Priesthood of Amun. Tutankhaten, who succeeded him at age 8 (with Akhenaten's old vizier, Ay, as regent) changed his name to Tutankhamun in year 3 of his reign (1348 BC or 1331 BC) and abandoned Akhetaten, the city falling into ruin. Tutankhaten became the puppet king of the priests, thus the reason for his change of name. The priests threatened the unstable rulership of the child king and forced him to take various drastic actions which corrupted the written record of Egyptian succession and history, deleting the Amarna Revolution and Atenism. Temples Akhenaten had built, including the temple at Thebes, were disassembled, reused as a source of building materials and decorations for their own temples, and inscriptions to Aten defaced. Finally, Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, and Ay were excised from the official lists of Pharaohs, which instead reported that Amenhotep III was immediately succeeded by Horemheb. Kheperkheperure–Irimaat Everlasting are the Manifestations of Re, who does what is right Nomen Itinetjer Ay Gods father, Ay Horus name Kanakht Tekhenkhau The strong bull, the one of glittering crowns Nebty name Sekhempehti dersetet Who is mighty of strength, who subdues the Asiatics Golden Horus Heqamaat sekhepertawy The... King Tut redirects here. ... -1... (Redirected from 1331 BC) Centuries: 15th century BC - 14th century BC - 13th century BC Decades: 1380s BC 1370s BC 1360s BC 1350s BC 1340s BC - 1330s BC - 1320s BC 1310s BC 1300s BC 1290s BC 1280s BC Events and Trends Significant People 1338 BC - Queen Tiy of Egypt, Chief Queen... Nebmaatre The Lord of Truth is Re[2] Nomen Amenhotep Hekawaset Amun is Satisfied, Ruler of Thebes[1] Horus name Kanakht Emkhaimaat The strong bull, appearing in truth Nebty name Semenhepusegerehtawy One establishing laws, pacifying the two lands Golden Horus Aakhepesh-husetiu Great of valour, smiting the Asiatics Consort(s... Djeserkheperure Setepenre Holy are the Manifestations of Re, Chosen of Re[1] Nomen Horemheb Meryamun Horus is in Jubilation, Beloved of Amun Consort(s) Mutnedjmet, Amenia Died 1292 BC Burial KV57 Djeserkheperure Horemheb was the last Pharaoh of Ancient Egypts 18th Dynasty from c. ...

Link to Judaism

Because of the monotheistic character of Atenism, a link to Judaism (and subsequently the monotheistic religions springing from it) has been suggested by various writers. Psychologist Sigmund Freud considered Akhenaten to be the pioneer of monotheistic religion and Moses as Akhenaten's follower in his book Moses and Monotheism (see also Osarseph). Recently, Ahmed Osman^[1] has argued that Akhenaten and Moses are the same person. These views however haven't found widespread acceptance among historians. Monotheism (in Greek monon = single and Theos = God) is the belief in a single, universal, all-encompassing deity. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A psychologist is an expert in psychology, the systematic investigation of the human mind, including behavior, cognition, and affect. ... Sigmund Freud (IPA: ), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939), was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. ... Moses with the Tablets, 1659, by Rembrandt This article is about the Biblical figure. ... Moses and Monotheism is a book by Sigmund Freud. ... Osarseph is a person that Manetho (writing in the first millenium BC) claimed was a high priest mainly during the reign of Amenhotep III. According to Manetho, he was part of the priesthood at Heliopolis, and supported the introduction of monotheism by Akhenaten. ... Ahmed Osman (born 1934) is an Egyptian-born author, most noted for literally identifying the Hebrew liberator Moses with the Egyptian monotheist pharaoh Akhenaten. ... Moses with the Tablets, 1659, by Rembrandt This article is about the Biblical figure. ...

Literature

• Aldred, Cyril, Akhenaten, King of Egypt ISBN 0-500-05048-1
• Redford, Donald B., "Akhenaten: The Heretic King" ISBN 0691002177

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Great Hymn to Aten

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References

1. ^ Ahmed Osman, Moses and Akhenaten. The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus, (December 2002, Inner Traditions International, Limited) ISBN 1-59143-004-6