Akhenaten and the Aten Religion
Though sometimes termed the 'Amarna Revolution', the rise of the Aten religion in official circles was a bit more gradual in nature, though it took a extraordinary man to take it to the extreme position of preeminence above all other cults. The word 'aten' itself is translated not as the sun but the disk of the sun. The sun god Atum was often referred to reside in the sun's disk, but it was not until the reign of Thutmosis I (1504-1492 BC) that the Aten is specifically referred to as a god in its own right. It was nearly another hundred years later that the first image of the Aten appeared on a monument at Giza during the kingship of Amenhotep II (1427-1401 BC). The following pharaoh Thutmosis IV proclaimed the Aten the protector of his armies, a position formerly ascribed to Amun. Finally, the father of Akhenaten, Amenhotep III, founded a priesthood and temples to the Aten in Heliopolis(the old center of sun worship) and in Memphis. The palace in Thebes was also dedicated to the Aten.
In 1353 BC Akhenaten assumed the throne of Egypt with a seemingly clear goal. From the outset of his reign, he began to raise the profile of the Aten cult which was previously no more important than any other cult if not less important. With his approval, temples to the Aten were constructed in the Temple of Amun at Karnak, and by the third year of his reign, he had built the Gempaaten (the aten is found) in Thebes itself. Decorated stone blocks from this structure were reused by later pharaohs, giving us a glimpse of what the Aten ceremonies entailed. It seems that processionals were used often, apparently for the glory of the Aten and as a show of royal power and proximity to the Aten. The new priesthood of the Aten were also in attendance, no doubt indebted to the king. During the move to Amarna, Akhenaten initiated a wave of iconoclastic fury over the old temples of Amun in particular, most likely because he represented the only real threat to the Aten as being the former head of the Egyptian pantheon. During the Amarna period, the Aten became the embodiment of love, creation, beauty, light and unity.(J. Foster, 1999) These attributes made their way into the art of the time as we shall soon see. By the ninth year of his reign, Akhenaten had built the Great Temple at Amarna and Aten was the only god left in the official Egyptian worship.
Thus it seems that Akhenaten's elevation of the Aten religion was only a culmination of the work of previous rulers. The reality of the situation is of course more complicated. It must be noted that although the pre-Amarna rulers gave increasing importance to the cult of the Aten, Amenhotep III was careful not to build a temple to the Aten within the boundaries of the religious capital of Thebes. Finally, he neither ever wished to suppress the old cults nor did he relocate to a new capital city. It is true then that Akhenaten's 'revolution' was preceded by winds of change, but the gust that he actually delivered into the sails of Egyptian religion (and art and politics) was still revolutionary in scope.
Figure 2: Altar Stele of Akhenaten (left) and Nefertiti (right) hold their children while being blessed by the Aten's rays (G. Robins, 1997: 156, pl. 182)
After the death of Akhenaten, the fortunes of the new Aten religion quickly changed for the worse. Under the King Neferneferuaten, whom we have seen may have been Nefertiti, a temple to Amun was built within the boundaries of Amarna, something unthinkable in the time of Akhenaten. Less than three years after his father's death, Tutankhaten assumed the throne and after a year in Amarna, he left to return to Thebes. There he set about to mend the heresies of his father whether willingly or otherwise. What is meant by this ambiguous statement is that the priests of Amun, having grown wealthy and powerful by the time of Amenhotep III, resented their loss of stature under Akhenaten, not to mention the defacement and despoilment of their temples. They may have exerted pressure on the young pharaoh to return to orthodoxy. What is clear, however, is that Tutankhaten changed his name to Tutankhamen, thus reversing the change of titulature and seat of power that his father had made. The only step left was to resign the Aten religion to history. He accomplished this by reimbursing the old centers of worship out of the royal treasury itself. Furthermore, a stela erected in the northern capital of Thebes proclaims the old Egyptian pantheon restored and all but vilifies his own father. The stela was placed in the palace of Thutmose I, built over two hundred years ago, perhaps emphasizing the return to tradition.(W. Murname, 1999) However, there was one unexpected outcome from the Amarna revolution. It seems that though there was an apparent return to tradition soon after Akhenaten's death, the damage to the preeminent Amun cult was severe enough to relegate it to a power sharing status with the cults of Ptah, Ra-Horakhty and other gods. Thus, while the Aten religion was all but forgotten, its legacy in Egyptian religion was subtle yet significant.
