AKHENATEN

ONLY ONE GOD

Aten's coexistence with the other deities lasted for only a short time.

The traditional divine multipicity was still fully present at the king's 'sed'-festival,
for their temples and domains were obliged to contribute to the financing of the
great festival and the new construction projects; the exclusivity of the Aten was
thus at first only a relative one - like many an Egyptian deity, he was UNIQUE, but
not EXCLUSIVE.

But in the representations, only the radiant Aten appears in the divine chapels of
the 'sed'-festival, while in a highly fragmentary inscription from the Ninth Pylon,
which reproduces a speech by the king, the new god is emphatically contrasted to
the other deities.

REPRODUCTION OF THE MURAL IN THE TOMB OF PARENNEFER AT THEBES

In the Theban tomb of Parennefer ( who was still "overseer of the prophets of all
the gods'!) a text stresses that "one measures the payments to every (other) god

REPRODUCTION OF THE MURAL IN THE TOMB OF PARENNEFER AT THEBES

with a level measure, but for the Aten one measures so that it overflows" - this in
contrast to the warning in the popular "Story of the Eloquent Peasant" not to fill to
overflowing, or not to overdo Maat, as the sage Ptahhotpe had quite similarly advised.

In the future, the Aten with his rays would be the only permissible icon of the god. The
mixed form of a human body and an animal's head would vanish, and only the hands ema-
nating from the sun would serve as a reminder of his former human form.

At an early stage, these hands could still hold any sort of objects; thus, in smiting scenes,
they even held weapons that they extended to Pharaoh!

In connection with the 'sed'-festival, they held the hieroglyph designating this festival by
way of a wish for many repetitions of it. But in the final form of the "radiant Aten" only
the ANKH sign, the hieroglyph for "life", remained, extended to the noses of the king and
the queen.

The rays depicted in the art are mentioned again and again in the hymns to the "Aten", as
a token of the proximity of this "distant" god.