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Atenism, also known as the Aten religion, the Amarna religion, and the Amarna heresy, was a religion in ancient Egypt. It was founded by Akhenaten, a pharaoh who ruled the New Kingdom under the Eighteenth Dynasty. The religion is described as Monotheism or Monolatry, although some Egyptologists argue that it was actually henotheistic.Darnell, J. C., & Manassa, C. (2007). Tutankhamun's Armies: Battle and conquest during ancient Egypt's Late Eighteenth Dynasty. John Wiley & Sons. Atenism was centered on the cult of Aten, a god depicted as the disc of the Sun. Aten was originally an aspect of Ra, Egypt's traditional solar deity, though he was later asserted by Akhenaten as being the supreme of all deities.
In the 14th century BC, Atenism was Egypt's state religion for around 20 years, and Akhenaten met the worship of other gods with persecution; he closed many traditional temples, instead commissioning the construction of Atenist temples, and also suppressed religious traditionalists. However, subsequent pharaohs toppled the movement in the aftermath of Akhenaten's death, thereby restoring Egyptian civilization's traditional polytheistic religion. Large-scale efforts were then undertaken to remove from Egypt and Egyptian records any presence or mention of Akhenaten, Atenist temples, and assertions of a uniquely supreme god.
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 Egyptian temple complexes in ancient Egypt, including one at Karnak and one at Thebes, close to the old temple of Amun. In the ninth year of his reign (1344/1342 BC), Akhenaten declared a more radical version of his new religion, declaring Aten not merely the supreme god of the Egyptian pantheon but the only God of Egypt, with himself as the sole intermediary between the Aten and the Egyptian people. 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. Aten was addressed by Akhenaten in prayers, such as the Great Hymn to the Aten: "O sole God beside whom there is none". Aten's name is also written differently after the ninth year of the Pharaoh's rule to emphasise the radicalism of the new regime. Aten, instead of being written with the symbol of a rayed solar disc, now became spelled phonetically.
The details of Atenist theology are still unclear. The exclusion of all but one god and the prohibition of idols was a radical departure from Egyptian tradition, but some scholars see Akhenaten as a practitioner of monolatrism or henotheism rather than monotheism, as he did not actively deny the existence of other gods. He simply refrained from worshipping any but Aten. These reforms were later reversed by his successor Tutankhamun.Simson Najovits, Egypt, the Trunk of the Tree. A Modern Survey of an Ancient Land, II, New York, 2004, pp. 132- 136.
Some historians argue that only Akhenaten and Nefertiti could worship Aten directly.
The pinnacle of the religious hierarchy was the Pharaoh, both king and living god. 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. Akhenaten's reforms cut away both the philosophical and economic bases of priestly power, abolishing the cults of all other deities and, with them, the large and lucrative industry of sacrifices and tributes that the priests controlled.
At the same time, he strengthened the role of the Pharaoh. Dominic Montserrat, analyzing the various versions of the hymns to the Aten, argues that all versions of the hymns focus on the king; he suggests that the real innovation is to redefine the relationship of god and king in a way that benefited Akhenaten, quoting a statement of Egyptologist John Baines: "Amarna religion was a religion of god and king, or even of king first and then god".
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, and the god's full title on boundary steles of the new capital was " Ra-Horus, who rejoices in the horizon in his name of the light which is in the sun disc".
However, in the ninth year 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 Akhenaten as the son of Aten was the only intermediary between the Aten and his people. He ordered the defacing of Amun's temples throughout Egypt. 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 as ending in hands, appear to represent the unseen spirit of Aten. Later still, even this was done away with.
Images of Akhenaten and Nefertiti usually depict the Aten prominently above that pair, with the hands of the Aten closest to each offering Ankhs. Unusually for New Kingdom art, the Pharaoh and his wife are depicted as approximately equal in size, with Nefertiti's image used to decorate the lesser Aten temple at Amarna. That may suggest that she also had a prominent official role in Aten worship.
Artistic representations of Akhenaten usually give him an unusual 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. It is also suggested by Brier that the family suffered from Marfan's syndrome, which is known to cause elongated features, which may explain Akhenaten's appearance.
Though Akhenaten's last years saw possibly the most aggressive repression of Amun and, less likely, other gods, his death quickly resulted in the resurgence of the old cults. Neferneferuaten appears to have attempted to reach some accommodation with the Amun priesthood, while still preserving a less exclusive form of Atenism. After a few years, however, Neferneferuaten disappeared, and her successor Tutankhaten (with Akhenaten's old vizier, Ay, as regent) changed his name to Tutankhamun in the third year of his reign (c. 1330 BC), restored power to the Amun priesthood, and moved the capital away from Akhetaten, perhaps to Memphis, or, less likely, Thebes.
The following two decades saw Atenism's terminal decline. Most of the temples that Akhenaten had built from talatat blocks, including the temple at Thebes, were disassembled, reused as a source of building materials and decorations for other temples, and inscriptions to Aten were defaced. Though Akhetaten was not fully abandoned, and the local Aten temple continued to function, most residents left over time. After Ay's short rule as pharaoh in his own right following Tutankhamun's death, his general, Horemheb, a non-royal, came to power. He ordered a purge of the Amarna Period rulers, removing Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Neferneferuaten, Tutankhamun, and Ay from the official lists of Pharaohs, and destroying their monuments, including most remaining Aten temples. Nevertheless, the Aten temple in Akhetaten was still in use during Horemheb's first years, suggesting that the purge was not universal, perhaps leaving some small pockets of Atenism in Egypt.
Though this marked the de facto end of Atenism, the revolutionary cult left some lasting impact on ancient Egyptian religion. For example, some changes in funerary rites during the Amarna Period remained in place under Horemheb and his successors.
The modern Druze regard their religion as being descended from and influenced by older monotheistic and mystic movements, including Atenism. In particular, they attribute the Tawhid's first public declaration to Akhenaten.
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