Atenism in the Amarna Period: Religious Revolution or Political Power Play?
Ancient Egypt Gods: The Aten
"The Aten was worshipped in the open sunlight, rather than in dark temple enclosures, as the old gods had been. However, far from being open to the people, only Akhenaten (and his family) could connect with the god. In the Hymn to the Aten, Akhenaten states "there is none who knows thee save thy son Akhenaten". Perhaps unsurprisingly, excavations at Akhetaten (Armarna) have indicated that the ordinary people did not take to the new religion but continued to worship the old gods in private."
Amarna Belief
Last stanza from "The Great Hymn to the Aten"
You are in my heart, there is none other who knows you
beside your son Neferkheperura-sole-one-of-Ra.
You instruct him in your plans, in your strength.
The land comes into being by your action, as you make them,
and when you have shone, they live,
when you rest, they die.
You are lifetime, in your body,
people live by you.
Eyes are on your beauty until you set.
All work is stopped when you set on the west;
shine, and strengthen (all for) the king.
Motion is in every leg, since you founded the earth,
you raise them for your son who come from your body,
the king who lives on Right, lord of the two lands,
Neferkheperura-sole-one-of-Ra,
son of Ra who lives on Right, lord of Risings,
Akhenaten, great in his lifespan,
and the great king's wife whom he loves, lady of the two lands,
Neferneferuaten Nefertiti, eternally alive.
Art, Architecture, and the City in the Reign of Amenhotep IV / Akhenaten (ca. 1353–1336 B.C.) | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
"At the same time, Atenism gave the king himself a divine-like role as sole representative and interpreter of the Aten—as stated elsewhere in the above hymn, “there is no one who knows you except your son”—so that any access to and understanding of the god was mediated through the figure of the king and his family. Although there is no reason to think the king’s self-promotion was only politically motivated, the differentiation of king and gods was altered."
"The city offers a good deal of information about the spiritual concerns of its people, although the disparate evidence leaves many gaps and questions. As for involvement in the official Aten religion and the temples, officials presumably commissioned some of the temple statuary of the royal family or small-scale temple equipment at workshops distributed throughout one whole zone of the city. Some of the society at least also seems to have had particular access to certain parts of the temple: the Stela Emplacement area toward the back is one example already noted. Certain figured ostraka or carved single ears—known elsewhere as dedications asking for a god’s attention to prayers—may likewise be offerings deposited at some locale in the temples (66.99.40). Moreover, the huge bakeries attached to the Great Aten Temple, along with the many hundreds of offering tables in the temple, point to wide distributions of food, and these could be tied to broad accommodation within areas of the temple enclosure, possibly in connection with the festivals of the Aten promised on the boundary stelae.
In their homes, officials might exhibit devotion to the royal family as the children of the Aten, sometimes constructing small chapels in gardens alongside their houses for their own or perhaps neighborhood use. And at least one structure located in the city’s bureaucratic and military district was a sort of neighborhood shrine for a cult of the king. From the perspective of the small finds attached to houses and burials of the wider populace, there is very little overt evidence of attention to the new god, although such attention might not be well manifested in such finds for a variety of reasons. What is clear is that there was no absolute prohibition on other gods: material remains testify to continued interest in household gods like Bes and Taweret (21.6.73), protector deities like Shed and Isis, and belief in the efficacious magic of female or cobra figurines. The practice of honoring and invocation of important ancestors and probably other figures in the community through statues or stelae in household shrines or elsewhere seems to have pervaded society, and points to a better understanding of the phenomenon usually termed “ancestor worship” (11.150.21; 31.114.1).
