What was Akhenaton known for?

Akhenaten came to power as the pharaoh of Egypt in either the year 1353 or 1351 BCE and reigned for roughly 17 years during the 18th dynasty of Egypt’s New Kingdom. Akhenaten became best known to modern scholars for the new religion he created that centered on the Aten.

Who is Akhenaten and Aton?

The pharaoh Akhenaton (reigned 1353–36 bce) returned to supremacy of the sun god, with the startling innovation that the Aton was to be the only god (see Re). To remove himself from the preeminent cult of Amon-Re at Thebes, Akhenaton built the city Akhetaton (now Tell el-Amarna) as the centre for the Aton’s worship.

Which pharaoh worshipped Aton?

pharaoh Akhenaten
Aten also Aton, Atonu, or Itn (Ancient Egyptian: jtn, reconstructed [ˈjaːtin]) was the focus of Atenism, the religious system established in ancient Egypt by the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten.

Who did Akhenaten worship?

the sun god Aton
Akhenaten’s exclusive worship of the sun god Aton led early Egyptologists to claim that he created the world’s first monotheistic religion. However, modern scholarship notes that Akhenaten’s cult drew from aspects of other gods—particularly re-Harakhte, Shu, and Maat—in its imagining and worship of Aton.

Who was the first god in the world?

Brahma the Creator In the beginning, Brahma sprang from the cosmic golden egg and he then created good & evil and light & dark from his own person. He also created the four types: gods, demons, ancestors, and men (the first being Manu).

What was Akhenaten’s new religion?

Aten
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.

What religion was pharaoh?

The religion of Ancient Egypt lasted for more than 3,000 years, and was polytheistic, meaning there were a multitude of deities, who were believed to reside within and control the forces of nature.

Why was Akhenaten different from the other Egyptian pharaohs?

Akhenaten was a unique pharaoh in more ways than one. He initiated a major socio-religious revolution that had vast consequences for his country, and possessed a strikingly abnormal physiognomy that was of note in his time and has interested historians up to the present era.

What god did Akhenaten believe in?

Above all, though Akhenaten is known for his development of a kind of early monotheism that stressed the uniqueness of the sun god Aten, and of Akhenaten’s own relationship with this god. For this king, there was only one god and only one person who now knew the god: Akhenaten himself.

What was the original name of the Akhenaton in Egypt?

Read More on This Topic. ancient Egypt: Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton) The earliest monuments of Amenhotep IV, who in his fifth regnal year changed his name to Akhenaton (“One Useful to Aton”), are conventional in their iconography and style, but from the first he gave the sun god a didactic title naming Aton, the solar….

Why was the temple of Aten important to Akhenaten?

It served as the main place of worship of the deity Aten during the reign of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten (c. 1353–1336 BCE). Akhenaten ushered in a unique period of ancient Egyptian history by establishing the new religious cult dedicated to the sun-disk Aten.

Did Akhenaten decorate the temple of Amun with polychromy?

Since the 1920s, archaeologists have unearthed small blocks of sandstone at the Temple of Amun in Karnak, decorated with beautiful scenes that preserve their original polychromy. These scenes were part of larger ones that decorated the defunct temple built by Akhenaten in Karnak, the Gempaaten, dedicated to the solar disk.

What is a good book to read about the Akhénaton?

Akhénaton. Les grands pharaons (in French). Paris: Pygmalion-Flammarion. ISBN 978-2756400433. Landes, Richard (2011). Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-983181-4.