AKHENATEN

E P I L O G U E

ROOTS OF FUNDAMENTALISM

Here, we come to the critical point.

In Amarna religion, for the first time in history, an attempt was made to explain the entire natural and
human world on the basis of a SINGLE priciple.

Like Einstein, Akhenaten made light the absolute reference point and it is astonishing how clearly and consistently he pursued this concept in the Fourteenth Century BCE, making him, in fact, the first
MODERN human being.

Indeed, modernity also strives to describe the universe with a single formula, to explain it on the basis of a SINGLE principle; the attempts to do so do not cease.

But Akhenaten demonstrated with unusual clarity that such one-sideness is doomed to failure.

All we repress and ignore will overtake and overshadow us.

Akhenaten was perhaps the first fundamentalist in history and, for this reason, he remains, even today, a very contemporary figure who can scarcely be denied respect and sympathy in any critique of him.

But there is a lesson for us in his fate and his failure: FUNDAMENTALISM, in whatever form, solves no
problems, but only suppresses them.

We must not succumb to the temptation that, from time to time, emerges from it and its apparently simple and clear solutions.

With its intolerance, it can have no future: things must not be reduced to a single, isolated principle, be it ever so noble and elevated.

Always and, above all, the whole is at stake.

No grim reaction followed Akhenaten, but rather a cautious attempt to join old to new, so as not to give
up - straight away - what had been achieved on the positive side.

The Amarna Period exercised a stimulating and fertilizing influence on the intellectual and spiritual history of ancient Egypt and of all humankind, and, for our own time, it continues to offer a model instance from which we can learn.

FROM

AKHENATEN AND THE RELIGION OF LIGHT

Erik Hornung

Translated by David Lorton