Who is aten the egyptian god

Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet. Akhenaten and the rays of the sun god Aten Fragment of relief made from alabaster showing Akhenaten headless followed by Nefertiti and Meritaten before an offering table with 3 jars, to which the hands of the Aten are extended. Tarkhan dress. This dress was excavated at Tarkhan. It appears that, from the outset, Amenhotep IV had an affinity for traditional sun-gods. He was not yet a monotheist. Based on an inscription dated to regnal year 1 of Amenhotep IV at the sandstone quarry of Gebel el-Silsileh south of Luxor , we learn that here the new king began his first building project.

No earlier form of the sun-god employed such a lengthy name. So this is new. Only a handful of decorated and inscribed blocks have survived, and some remain partially visible in the 10th Pylon or gateway at Karnak. Only the head of the falcon is preserved. This initial representation of the sun-god looks just like the solar deity, Re-Horakhty.

On the right side of the scene, the king himself is depicted and above him the lower portion of a sun-disc is preserved. It has cobras on both sides, and hanging from their necks is an ankh -sign, the so-called key of life. Three more ankh s are connected to the underside of the Sun. Another block believed to be from this same temple preserves only a portion of a larger scene.

It too contains the creedal name, but it depicts the image of the god Shu, whose name occurs in the creedal formula, along with his wife, Tefnut. It is clear from this early temple block that the introduction of this new form of the sun-god did not preclude mentioning primordial deities such as Shu and Tefnut. During this period, he built at least four temples to Aten in eastern Karnak.

These sanctuaries were later dismantled, but thanks to the Egyptian penchant for recycling building material, the temple blocks were reused elsewhere. Over the past few decades, tens of thousands of inscribed blocks from these later edifices have been collected by Egyptologists. Over time, they have become dilapidated, thereby exposing the earlier stone. The sandstone blocks in question were of a different size than those used to construct previous temples called talatat by Egyptologists.

Because of their unique size, they are easily recognisable when reused. Efforts to piece together this massive jigsaw puzzle actually four puzzles! From these scenes, the four original temples were identified.

One key Egyptologist leading the effort to assemble the blocks was the historian Donald Redford then of the University of Toronto , who sought to glean as much information as possible from the scenes about the formative years of Atenism. I n , French Egyptologists working at Karnak Temple were summoned to examine some strange demolished statues that were uncovered outside the eastern wall of the temple complex during the excavation of a drainage canal.

After exposing more of the statues, which turned out to represent Akhenaten and temple blocks, the work was abandoned, and the area largely forgotten.

Fifty years elapsed before work resumed in As a graduate student, I had the privilege of working with Redford on these excavations between and We re-excavated the now-covered area exposed in , and then moved north where we uncovered the southwest corner.

Years later, the northwest corner was found too. Between the corners, an entrance was cleared where the avenue of statues continued west, perhaps toward one or more of the other Aten temples.

The telltale talatat blocks were used throughout. The western wall was feet metres wide. Ongoing work has uncovered traces of talatat walls and statue fragments below the village farther to the east of our excavation area, showing that it was a square structure. In its early stages, Atenism is best described as a henotheistic religion a religion devoted to a single god while accepting the existence of other gods but it developed into a proto-monotheistic system.

The full extent of his religious reforms were not apparent until the ninth year of his reign. As well as proclaiming the Aten the only god, he banned the use of idols with the exception of a rayed solar disc. He also made it clear that the image of the Aten only represented the god, but that the god transcended creation and so could not be fully understood or represented.

This aspect of his faith bears a notable resemblance to the religion of Moses, prompting Freud to suggest that Akhenaten was the first Monotheist. They describe the wonders of nature and hail the sun as the absolute and universal lord of all things. In particular, the Hymn to the Aten recorded in the tomb of Ay, the vizier Akhenaten who became pharaoh after Tutankhamun has become famous as many commentators have argued that Psalm which describes the wonders of nature and ascribes ultimate power to Yahweh, the Hebrew God was inspired by it or based on it.

Amun, Mut and Khonsu, the patron gods of Thebes, were especially targeted. In the fifth year of his reign, Akhenaten announced plans to create a new cult arena entirely for the Aten. The site is known today as Amarna. Akhetaten grew quickly into a large, sprawling city on the east bank of the Nile River.

Vast temples were dedicated to the Aten, left unroofed to be filled with light - thus eliminating the need for cult statues of the god. Offerings of bread, beer, cattle, fowl, wine, fruit and incense were given to the sun god on open-air altars.

Reliefs, paintings and statues of the royal family adorned cult buildings, less extreme in style than the early Karnak colossi but often still fluid and exaggerated. Occasionally the royal family was depicted kissing and embracing.

Around the city's outskirts, Akhenaten built at least four Sunshade of Re temples dedicated to royal women, where the king connected with the regenerative powers of the sun god.

In a valley deep in the eastern cliffs, he created a new royal burial ground. Loyal officials were granted space in the cliff face for their own grand tombs. Hoping for an afterlife in the company of the sun god, they celebrated the cult of the Aten and the divine king through scenes and texts carved on the tomb walls. These included the famous Hymns to the Aten , in which the Aten is presented as the creative power of light.

The Hymns stress that the Aten is the only god, encompassing concepts of beauty, love and fatherhood.