Aten


Aten also Aton, Atonu, Itn was the focus of Atenism, the religious system established in ancient Egypt by the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten. The Aten was the disc of the sun and originally an aspect of Ra, the sun god in traditional ancient Egyptian religion, but Akhenaten made it the sole focus of official worship during his reign.
In his poem "Great Hymn to the Aten", Akhenaten praises Aten as the creator, giver of life, and nurturing spirit of the world. Aten does not have a creation myth or family but is mentioned in the Book of the Dead. The worship of Aten was eradicated by Horemheb.

Etymology and origin

The word "Aten" appears in the Old Kingdom as a noun meaning "disc" which referred to anything flat and circular; the sun was called the "disc of the day" where Ra was thought to reside. By analogy, the term "silver aten" was sometimes used to refer to the moon. High relief and low relief illustrations of the Aten show it with a curved surface, therefore, the late scholar Hugh Nibley insisted that a more correct translation would be globe, orb or sphere, rather than disk.
The first known reference to Aten the sun-disk as a deity is in The Story of Sinuhe from the 12th dynasty, in which the deceased king is described as rising as a god to the heavens and uniting with the sun-disk, the divine body merging with its maker.

Religion

The solar Aten was extensively worshipped as a god in the reign of Amenhotep III when it was depicted as a falcon-headed man much like Ra. In the reign of Amenhotep III's successor, Amenhotep IV, the Aten became the central god of the Egyptian state religion, and Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten to reflect his close link with the new supreme deity.
The principles of Aten's religion were recorded on the rock tomb walls of Akhetaten.
In the religion of Aten, night is a time to fear. Work is done best when the sun, Aten, is present. Aten cares for every creature, and created a Nile river in the sky for the Syrians. Aten created all countries and people. The rays of the sun disk only holds out life to the royal family; everyone else receives life from Akhenaten and Nefertiti in exchange for loyalty to Aten.
Aten is depicted caring for the people through Akhenaten by Aten's hands extending towards the royalty, giving them ankhs representing life being given to humanity through both Aten and Akhenaten. In Akhenaten's Hymn to Aten, a love for humanity and the Earth is depicted in Aten's mannerisms:
"Aten bends low, near the earth, to watch over his creation; he takes his place in the sky for the same purpose; he wearies himself in the service of the creatures; he shines for them all; he gives them sun and sends them rain. The unborn child and the baby chick are cared for; and Akhenaten asks his divine father to 'lift up' the creatures for his sake so that they might aspire to the condition of perfection of his father, Aten".
Akhenaten represented himself not as a god, but as a son of Aten, shifting the previous methods of pharaohs claiming to be the embodiment of Horus. This contributes to the belief that Atenism should be considered a monotheistic religion where "the living Aten beside whom there is no other; he was the sole god".
There is only one known instance of the Aten talking, "said by the 'Living Aten': my rays illuminate..."
Aten is an evolution of the idea of a sun god in Egyptian mythology, deriving a lot of his concepts of power and representation from the earlier god Ra but building on top of the power Ra represents. Aten carried absolute power in the universe, representing the life-giving force of light to the world as well as merging with the concept and goddess Maat to develop further responsibilities for Aten beyond the power of light itself.

Iconography

Aten, by nature, was everywhere and intangible because he was the sunlight and energy in the world. Therefore, he did not have physical representations that other Egyptian gods had; he was represented by the sun disc and reaching rays of light. The explanation as to why Aten could not be fully represented was that Aten was beyond creation. Thus the scenes of gods carved in stone previously depicted animals and human forms, now showed Aten as an orb above with life-giving rays stretching toward the royal figure. This power transcended human or animal form.
Later, iconoclasm was enforced, and even sun disc depictions of Aten were prohibited in an edict issued by Akhenaten. In the edict, he stipulated that Aten's name was to be spelt phonetically.

Worship

The cult centre of Aten was at the new city Akhetaten; some other cult cities include Thebes and Heliopolis. The principles of Aten's cult were recorded on the rock walls of tombs of Amarna. Significantly different from other ancient Egyptian temples, temples of Aten were open-roofed to allow the rays of the sun. Doorways had broken lintels and raised thresholds. No statues of Aten were allowed; those were seen as idolatry. However, these were typically replaced by functionally equivalent representations of Akhenaten and his family venerating the Aten and receiving the ankh from him. Priests had less to do since offerings were limited, and oracles were not needed.
In the worship of Aten, the daily service of purification, anointment, and clothing of the divine image was not performed. Incense was burnt several times a day. Hymns sung to Aten were accompanied by harp music. Aten's ceremonies in Akhetaten involved giving offerings to Aten with a swipe of the royal scepter. Instead of barque processions, the royal family rode on a chariot on festival days. Elite women were known to worship the Aten in sun-shade temples in Akhetaten.

Architecture

Two temples were central to the city of Akhetaten, the larger of the two had an "open, unroofed structure covering an area of about at the northern end of the city". Temples to the Aten were open-air structures with little to no roofing to maximize the amount of sunlight on the interior making them unique compared to other Egyptian temples of the time. Balustrades depicting Akhenaten, the queen and the princess embracing the rays of Aten flanked stairwells, ramps, and altars. These fragments were initially identified as stele but were later reclassified as balustrades based on the presence of scenes on both sides.

Royal Titulary

During the Amarna Period, the Aten was given a royal titulary enclosed in a double cartouche, carrying royal implications. Some have interpreted this to mean that Akhenaten was the embodiment of Aten, and the worship of Aten is directly worship of Akhenaten; but others have taken this as an indicator of Aten as the supreme ruler even over the current reigning royalty.
There were two forms of the title; the first had the names of other gods, and the second later one was more 'singular' and referred only to the Aten himself. The early form was Re-Horakhti who rejoices in the Horizon, in his name Shu, which is the Aten. The later form was Re, ruler of the two horizons, who rejoices in the Horizon, in his name of light, which is the Aten.
Ra-Horus, more usually referred to as Ra-Horakhty, is a synthesis of two other gods, both of which are attested from very early on. During the Amarna period, this synthesis was seen as the invisible source of energy of the sun god, of which the visible manifestation was the Aten, the solar disk. Thus Ra-Horus-Aten was a development of old ideas which came gradually. The real change, as some see it, was the apparent abandonment of all other gods, especially Amun-Ra, prohibition of idolatry, and the debatable introduction of quasi-monotheism by Akhenaten. The syncretism is readily apparent in the Great Hymn to the Aten in which Re-Herakhty, Shu and Aten are merged into the creator god. Others see Akhenaten as a practitioner of an Aten monolatry, as he did not actively deny the existence of other gods; he simply refrained from worshipping any but the Aten. Other scholars call the religion henotheistic.

After Akhenaten

Akhenaten was considered the "high priest" or even a prophet of Aten, being the main propagator of the religion in Egypt during his reign. After the death of Akhenaten, his son, Tutankhamun, reinstated the cult of Amun and the ban on religions in competition with Atenism was lifted. The point of this transition can be seen in the name change of Tutankhaten into Tutankhamun indicating the loss of favor in the worship of Aten. The cult of Aten was still in Egypt for another ten years or so as it faded and there was no purge of the cult after Akhenaten's death. When Tutankhamun came into power, his religious reign was one of tolerance, the only difference was that Aten was no longer the only god. Tutankhamun rebuilt the temples that were destroyed during Akhenaten's reign and he reinstated the old pantheon of gods. This return to the gods that were before Aten was "a move based publicly on the doctrine that Egypt's woes stemmed directly from its ignoring the gods, and in turn the gods' abandonment of Egypt".

Names derived from Aten