The Cult of The Aten
Solar Theology in the Ancient Egypt, part. 1
A new journey through the ancient Egypt.
This part of the ancient Egyptian civilization has been the most important for the development of several of my works, paintings and sculptures.
Let’s jump through!
“The Solar Emperor of the Amarnian Age”
The end of the XVIII dynasty was characterized by the development of a complex solar theology, during which the cult of the Aten spread.
Different aspects of the culture of that period underwent profound transformations, so as to determine a peculiar historical moment, still much discussed today by Egyptologists, which takes the name of the “Amarnian Age”.
According to a trend already rooted in the Ancient and then in the Middle Kingdom, at the beginning of the New Kingdom, there had been a strong rise of the solar cults of the city of Heliopolis (located to the north, in Lower Egypt).
It was a solarization phenomenon that involved the most important divinities, obscuring part of their original nature.
Amun, for example, had been strongly assimilated to the sun god Ra, generating the composite form ‘Amon-Ra’, which had linked the two deities almost inextricably. Amon-Ra was therefore perceived as a real sun god and creator, whose power and will governed the entire universe.
Particularly important had become the Aten (jten), the representation of the solar disk, which shine in the sky. According to the sources available to Egyptologists, the term had originated in the ancient kingdom, but had enjoyed particular diffusion in the following era, with the “Texts of the Sarcophagi.”
During the New Kingdom, term jten acquired new meanings, probably more complex. In fact, it seems that the word no longer indicated only the disk of the sun, but assumed the function of a proper name, thus identifying a true divinity, precisely called Aten.
In this period there had also been a great diffusion of solar hymns and some pharaohs, such as Tutmosi IV and Amenhotep III, associated their power with Aten, which, with its light enveloped and controlled all creation.
The apex of this solar theology was reached with the figure of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, better known as Akhenaten, who had introduced a new theological vision, profoundly detaching himself from traditional religion.
In the first years of his reign, it seems that the relationship with the figure of Amun-Ra and the other deities of the Egyptian pantheon was not problematic.
The detachment from tradition occurred gradually, getting ever closer to the cult of the solar disk. The real change occurred within the fourth or fifth year of his reign, when the pharaoh decided to change his name to Akhenaten: “He who is useful to Aten”, and to move the capital to Thebes, until then the political and religious one, in a place called nowadays Tell el-Amarna, from which this period takes its name.
The new capital Akhenaten, “Horizon of Aten”, stood in Middle Egypt, on the eastern bank of the Nile, in a completely virgin place, far from the other religious centers already consecrated to other divinities: Heliopolis in Ra, Thebes in Amon and Memphis in Ptah .
The time had come for Akhenaten to find a space exclusively dedicated to Aten and solely consecrated to him, thus detaching himself from the cult of Amun-Ra.
End of part 1.
Continues.
