Akhet - The Horizon

The Sundisc

The Aten had hitherto been a relatively unimportant deity signifying the disc of the sun itself. The worship of Aetna that Amenophis IV (ca 1352 - 1354) tried to impose on Egypt was based on the life-giving energy inherent in the sun, which was not the same as the earlier suncult from the Old Kingdom. The cult of Re had never demanded that Re should take precedence over other deities, and the old worship was rather about the material form of the sun and its course across the sky, not the energy coming from it.

The Aten is mentioned as early as the Middle Kingdom, and gained some attention in the beginning of the 18th Dynasty, but it was not considered a separate solar deity until the 26th Dynasty. But during Amenhotep III it seems that a cult to it was established, perhaps an effort of the king to counteract the influence of the powerful priesthood of Amun. The other gods were still paid homage to though.

A New Religion

At Waset Amenhotep IV outwardly kept to the traditional deities while promoting the cult of Aten at the same time. He had several temples built, and his queen Nefertiti held an important position in the new worship of the Aten. Soon he made it clear however, that he intended to introduce a monotheistic cult. Funds were led from the priesthood of Amen-Re to support the cult of Aten, names of other deities were removed from monuments, and finally Amenhotep IV publicly renounced the cult of Amun-Re as the state cult of Egypt. He also changed his name to Akhenaten and moved his court to a new location where no temples had been built before. Called Akhetaten, meaning 'Horizon of the Aten', it became established as the new capital of Egypt, situated along the Nile and more or less equally distant from Waset and Lower Egypt.

Limited Influence

Ordinary people seemed little impressed with the new cult. They kept to their traditional deities and shrines. As no cult statue of the new god was to be seen or paraded on festival days and no fascinating mythology was there to be told, they saw no reason to change their beliefs. Perhaps the cult of Aten was taken on only by the royal family and members of the court who sought to advance their luck by favouring the new belief. Another reason for its failure to grasp the mind of common man could be that the king was the sole intermediator to the deity. There was no possibility of a direct relationship between man and the god, and in tombs at Akhetaten, where earlier there had been hymns spoken to Ra by the tomb owner, there were now hymns to Aten spoken by the king himself. The walls, which once had been decorated with images of the tomb owners making obeisance to different deities, there were now scenes of the court bowing to the king. Thus the king had made himself a component of this whole new concept.

Three Elements

But was it so very new? The Hymn to Aten holds few elements that have not been attributed to other deities and there is particular likeness to hymns to Amen-Re.

Another noteworthy aspect is that the cult of Aten consisted of three important elements, namely the symbol of the creative life force that had brought into existence everything in the universe, then the disc itself, which was frequently depicted as a sun disc from which rays extended, which ended in hands which reached out protectively to the king and his family. The third element was the king himself, thus once again restoring the identification of the king as the god.

This also affected the funerary customs. Though scarabs were still placed inside the mummy wrappings, these no longer bore inscriptions from the Book of the Dead, but instead the fate of deceased was placed in the hands of the king. The traditional gods of the underworld were no longer heeded. Thus both the cult priesthood and the funerary priesthood had been deprived of its position. The cult of Aten seems not to have provided any substitute for the Osirian belief in the afterlife or a moral philosophy, why it might be assumed that the most important motif behind the cult probably was to revive the concept of the divinity of the king, through whose goodwill the noble as well as common man was dependent for his survival after death.

Heretic

It has been suggested that the cult of Aten was an effort by Akhenaten to counteract the powerful position of the priesthood to Amun-Re. However, leaving no heir to ascend the throne at his death, the religious revolution of Akhenaten became a short-lived interlude of 18 years in the nearly 4000 year long history of ancient Egypt. After his death, the traditional ways of worshipping a multitude of gods were once again resumed and temples and monuments were restored. In the eyes of his successors, Akhenaten was a heretic and his name was not included in the King List.