Akhenaten: An Early Egyptian Monotheist
By Daniel C. Peterson and William J. Hamblin
Although monotheism is usually associated with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, there have, in fact, been a number of other monotheistic religions in world history. Iran, in particular, was a center for monotheistic thought, being home to both Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism.
At first glance, ancient Egypt, with its hundreds of exotic gods, would seem the last place for a monotheistic revelation. Yet one of the earliest monotheists known to history was Akhenaten, pharaoh of Egypt from 1352-1336 BC, who perhaps lived in the generation before Moses. Akhenaten was born of royal parents, raised and trained in the religious traditions of Egypt that focused on the worship of the high-god Amun at his great temple of Karnak in the capital city, Thebes (modern-day Luxor).
However, Akhenaten appears to have been personally devoted to the worship of Aten, the supreme Creator manifest as the sun-disk in the heavens. In the fifth year of his reign (1348 BC), Akhenaten made a formal break with the ancient traditional religion of Egypt, changing his name from his former throne-name, Amenhotep IV, to his new religious title Akhen-aten, “the glory of the [sun] disk.” He also decreased the resources devoted to the worship of Amun, and moved the capital of Egypt from Thebes to his newly established city Akhet-aten (“horizon of the [sun] disk”), which is better known by the modern name Amarna. His attempts to establish the supremacy of Aten included the suppression of the worship of other gods, and the excising of the name Amun from the walls of the great temples.
The twelve years of Akhenaten’s reign at his new capital are often called the Amarna period, due to their revolutionary transformation of Egypt. Although still recognizably Egyptian, the art of the Amarna period is characterized by experimental freedom and less stylized portraiture. The most famous work of art of the period is the realistic, life-like bust of Nefertiti, Akhenaten’s beautiful wife. On another famous bas-relief, Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and two of their daughters offer flowers and fruits to the sun-disk Aten, whose rays, stretching down, end in hands bearing the ankh-the Egyptian symbol of eternal life. The Great Temple of Aten at Amarna was surrounded by a vast open-air courtyard, measuring approximately 800×300 yards, which contained 365 altars for sacrifices to the glorious sun-disk.
Akhenaten’s personal religious and mystical feelings are remarkably preserved in his famous “Hymn to Aten,” with its extraordinary parallels to biblical Psalm 104. “How manifold are thy works!” writes Akhenaten. “They are hidden from the sight of men, O Sole God, like unto whom there is no other!”
Akhenaten’s obsession with religion caused him to neglect foreign affairs, undermining Egyptian domination of Canaan, which his ancestors had conquered at great cost. The military decay of the empire abroad is remarkably documented in the Amarna Tablets, a collection of royal correspondence from the vassal kings of Canaan to Akhenaten. Among these Egyptian vassals was Abdi-Khiba, king of Jerusalem, who wrote a letter to Akhenaten somewhat dubiously proclaiming his loyalty to the pharaoh.
Upon his death, Akhenaten was succeeded briefly by his brother Smenkhare, and then by the famous Tutankhamun. (It is uncertain if Tutankhamun was Akhenaten’s son, grandson, or closest male relative.) Shortly after ascending the throne, Tutankhamun abandoned Amarna, returning to the former capital at Thebes and to the traditional worship of Amun. The revenge of the priests of Amun for Akhenaten’s blasphemy was swift. His name was excised from the king-lists and his tomb was left unused. Perhaps the priests, seeking to deny him eternal life, refused to carry out the proper burial rituals. Thus, Akhenaten’s attempted religious revolution was quickly overturned by the renewed triumph of Amun. His very name was forgotten until the excavations of Amarna in the nineteenth century. The ultimate success of monotheism in Egypt would have to wait fourteen hundred years, until the coming of Christianity.
Further Reading: C. Aldred, Akhenaten: King of Egypt (Thames and Hudson, 1988).
