Aten
Lord of Heaven, Lord of Earth
Viewing the Aten as Akhenaten's god is actually a simplification. Aten
was the focus of Akhenaten's religion. Aten is the name given to
represent the solar disc. The term Aten was used to designate a disc, and
since the sun was a disc, gradually became associated with solar deities.
Consequently, Aten expresses indirectly the life-giving force of light. The full
title of Akhenaten's god was Ra-Horus, who rejoices in the horizon in his
name of the light which is in the sun disc. (This is the title of the god as
it appears on the numerous stelae which were placed to mark the boundaries of
Akhenaten's new capital at Amarna.) This lengthy name was often shortened to Ra-Horus-Aten
or just Aten in many texts, but the god Akhenaten had raised to supremacy
was in fact a synthesis of very ancient ones viewed in a new and different way.
In particular, it was not depicted in anthropomorphic (human) form, but as rays
of light extending from the sun's disk. Furthermore, the god's name came to be
written within a cartouche, along with the titles normally given to a Pharaoh,
another break with ancient tradition.
The Aten first appears in texts dating to the 12th dynasty, in The Story of
Sinuhe. Ra-Horus, more usually referred to as Ra-Herakhty (Ra, who is
Horus of the two horizons), 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 is the apparent abandonment
of all other gods following the advent of Akhenaten, i.e. the introduction,
apparently by Akhenaten, of monotheism. This is readily apparent in the Great
Hymn to the Aten.
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