colos of Amenhotep IV

Gem-pa-Aten temple at East Karnak
"the Aten is found" - Cairo Museum

O sole god without equal !
You are alone, shining in your form of the living Aten.
  Risen, radiant, distant and near.
Great Hymn, 47 & 73-74.

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The translation of The Great Hymn to the Aten is part of my Ancient Egyptian Readings (2016), a POD publication in paperback format of all translations available at maat.sofiatopia.org. These readings span a period of thirteen centuries, covering all important stages of Ancient Egyptian literature. Translated from Egyptian originals, they are ordered chronologically and were considered by the Egyptians as part of the core of their vast literature. The study of the sources, hieroglyphs, commentaries and pictures situating the text itself remain on the website at no cost.

Introduction

1 The New Kingdom and the colossal Amenhotep III

• 1.1 A few political features of the New Kingdom : the age of empire.

• 1.2 The great builder, dated Sed-festivals & traditional piety.

2 Prelude to Amarna religion : the "New Solar Theology"

• 2.1 The antiquity of the title "Son of Re" in Pharaoh's titulary.

• 2.2 The theology of the Sun, of light and movement.

• 2.3 The naturalization of the divine in religious experience.

3 The Rise of Akhenaten

• 3.1 Again Pharaoh's titulary or definition of rule.

• 3.2 The grotesque Pharaoh, permanent dynamism & intimacy.

• 3.3 The singularity of divine mediation : Aten - King - Queen.

4 The Aten-project :

CULTIC : dictatorial eradications & an imposed religion

• 4.1 Brutal end of previous worship, especially of Amun.

• 4.2 New open temples with no statues, roofs or holy of holies.

• 4.3 Flowers as perferred offering.

• 4.4 New dynamical representations : globe, Ankh, chariot.

NOMIC : radical naturalization of the "old" religion

• 4.5 Only Aten is divine and there is no god but Aten.

• 4.6 Life-giving light is the only divine presence.

• 4.7 Pharaoh is the only one with the Aten in his heart.

COSMIC : only light, presence and movement

• 4.8 Light without darkness.

• 4.9 Presence without absence.

• 4.10 Unity without multiplicity. 

MYSTIC : exclusive & highly subjectified

• 4.11 Without Pharaoh no salvation.

• 4.12 Eradication of Amun's interventions on behalf of the common people.

• 4.13 The mystical experience of Nature ?

5 Why was Akhenaten's monotheism sterile ?

6 Ancient Egyptian religion after Amarna

• 6.1 Restoration & the breakthrough of the Ramesside renewal of the old.

• 6.2 The integral, antithetic synthesis : Amun-Re who becomes millions.

• 6.3 The Mosaic revelation, YHVH Elohîm and the elimination of the figural & the inert.

Epilogue
Notes

• in the cosmogonies of the Old Kingdom, Shu & Tefnut are the first two deities to belong to the created order (Atum emerges and simultaneously creates Shu & Tefnut) and without this division between heaven and Earth (by the air between them) nothing would have come forth ;

• in the Coffin Texts, Shu (the word "shu" means "light-filled air"), the god of air, "makes it light after the darkness" ;

• the Aten or Sun disk is the dwelling-place of Shu (with the rays of its disk, the Sun clarifies the division made by Shu, division which is the necessary condition for anything to exist).

In the third year of his reign, Akhenaten also enclosed the didactical name of the Aten in a cartouche, as if it were part of the royal titulary. From the third to the fifth regnal year, he carried out a vast "Aten-project" or a formidable and thorough reorganization in religion, art, language, cult administration, economy etc. (in year 4, the high priest of Amun was literally sent "into the desert" and priest were reindoctrinated).

In the fifth year, the new Residence, Akhetaten ("Horizon of the Aten") is a gigantic construction site. The project was never really finished (Pharaoh was unusually depicted with a hammer in his hand), but in the fifth or sixth year, Amenhotep IV changed his royal titulary.³⁴

1. Horus name : changed from "Strong Bull of the Double Plumes" to "Strong Bull, Beloved (or lover) of Aten" ;

2. Nebty name : changed from "Great of Kingship in Karnak" to "Great of Kingship in Khut-Aten" (his newly founded residence of Akhetaten) ;  

3. Gold name : from "Crowned in Heliopolis of the South" (Thebes) to "Exalter of the Name of Aten" ;

4. Throne name : the core of the name : "Nefer-kheperu-re Waenre" or : "perfect are the manifestations of Re, the sole one of Re" remained unaltered but he added "Living by Maat" ;

5. personal (nomen) name : from "Amenhotep god-ruler of Thebes" to "He who is useful to Aten, Radiance of Aten or Glory of Aten". In Egyptian, "Akhenaten" sounded something like "Akhanyati" ³⁵

These changes were recorded on a boundary stelæ of year 6 (fourth month of winter, day 13) :

"The living Horus : Strong Bull beloved of Aten ; Two Ladies : Great of Kingship in Aten ; Gold-Horus : Who exalts the name of Aten ; the King of Upper and Lower Egypt who lives by Maat, the Lord of the Two Lands : Nefer-kheperu-Re, Sole-one-of-Re ; the Son of Re who lives by Maat, the Lord of crowns : Akhenaten, great in his lifetime, given life forever."
Akehenaten : Later Boudary Stelæ, at El-Amarna, translated by : Lichtheim, 1976, p.49, italics are cartouched.

Akhenaten made fourteen stelæ to record his founding of the new City of Light, Akhet-Aten ('the horizon of the Aten"). First three boundary stelæ were carved into the limestone cliffs on the East bank, at the northern & southern ends of the town. Later eleven more were cut into the cliffs, eight on the East and three on the West bank. The actual city lay only on the East bank, where the cemeteries are also to be found. He never did anything on the West bank, so the traditional "beautiful West" (the realm of the dead) played no role. The eleven stelæ bear one basic text with some additions and variations.

His traditional titles remained, but he used to style himself "the beautiful child of the living Aten". About four years later, the Aten too received a new royal titulary. The names Horus and Shu were removed from the new double cartouche, leaving only Aten and Re. The new "didactic" name or credo became : "Re-ruler-of-the-twin-horizons, who rejoices in the horizon in his name as Re-the-father-who-returns-as-Aten." ³⁶ 

These changes point to one direction only : the variety of appellations are avoided to the advantage of a single, unique deity : Re as the Aten. All associations with Amun (theological as wel as political) are eliminated. Also Atum is avoided, for this would associate creation too much with the first time ("zep tepi") and the chaotic realm before creation (Nun). Of this, no mention is made for there is no divine presence other than light.

There are reasons to believe Akhenaten inaugurated the royal status of the Aten with the celebration of a Sed-festival (however not in Akhetaten). A representation is not enough proof, for even Akhenaten is represented felling enemies without having undertaken a single military campaign. However, although his father Amenhotep III had invited all the deities in the land to celebrate with him, Akhenaten is represented as striding from shrine to shrine, each containing only the Aten, depicted as the Sun disk with its life-giving rays. All plurality is reduced to the singular.³⁷ 

The following choices point in the same direction :

1. in Thebes, beginning as "Amenhotep", he erects a temple for Re-Herakhty, favouring light (Re) and the mystical place of its emerging (the horizon or "akhet") ;

2. the new nomen name "Akhenaten" combines the notion of "efficiency" and "spirituality" (both "akh") with that of divine physical light (Aten). Pharaoh is a divine spirit who is effective for the Aten ;

3. his great monument, and proof of power, is a new capital, a new city of Akhetaten, where all aspects of the new creation may be combined as in the horizon or "akhet" of the Aten ;

4. the linguistic nearness between "akh" and "akhet" is used to convey the effectiveness of the power of the Eastern horizon, the mystical locus of the dawn of a new creation.

3.2 The grotesque Pharaoh,  permanent dynamism & intimacy.

The colossal statues in the Gem-pa-Aten temple are the earliest evidence of a change of artistic style. Egyptologists described them often in pejorative terms : Champollion employed the term "morbidezza" or softness, Wiedemann found the representations "in a frightfully ugly form, caricature", Wolf said the style invoked a "sick ugliness and nervous decadence", whereas Schäfter thought that he wanted to shock with his repulsive ugliness.

"Everything that had been static, fixed in place for eternity, is now set in motion. Vertical axes become diagonal, stressed by receding foreheads and elongated crowns. (...) movement characterized the playful, caressing intimacy of the royal family, which is depicted in lively group scenes, and the fluttering bands of cloth that dangle from clothes, crowns, and articles of furniture." - Hornung, 1999, p.44, my italics.

As soon as Pharaoh Akhenaten had changed his religion and his name, he also changed his own form and figure. In the earlier monuments, he still had retained some of the typical features of his father and his ancestors, but in Akhetaten (Tell el-'Amarna) his physical appearence totally changed too. His head was portrayed with a very high, narrow and receding forehead, with a large, sharp, aquiline nose, a weak, thin mouth and a large chin. This head was set upon a long, slender neck. Round chest, inflated stomack, large & broad thighs ... in many ways resembling a woman. 

"Their common denominator is a symbolic gathering of all attributes of the creator-god into the physical body of the king himself. The Aten subsumes into itself all the different gods who create and maintain the universe, and the king is the living image of the Aten on earth. He can therefore display on earth the Aten's multiple life-giving functions. These are represented through a set of signifiers that seem mutually contradictory to modern viewers, such as the appearance of female and male physical characteristics on the same statue, but made sense to the intended Egyptian audience. These attributes render the king literally superhuman, a divine body which goes beyond human experience." - Montserrat, 2001, p.48.

So-called "Amarna Art" has been compared with schools of Modern Art using a free form. Schäfter saw "expressionism" at work, as did Scharff. Montserrat (2001) doubts whether it is possible to compare Amarna with European currents and styles. Perhaps it is better to mark how it differs from the Egyptian canon ? For Hornung, this new style was a rebellion against the classical ideal of the XVIIIth dynasty.³⁸

hand of Akhenaten
limestone example of the innovative style of Amarna

Driven by his interest in dynamic process, Akhenaten as it were returned to the perennial idea behind the representation of the sign of "god" ("nTr" or "neter" pronounced "netjer") as a flagpole with two to four ribbons attached to the top and hence able to float in the air (representations show how, at the entrance of Akhenaten's Great Temple of the Aten at Amarna -760m long by 290m wide-, there were ten flagpoles instead of the eight of Karnak). This crucial sign acquired its definitive form as early as the Old Kingdom, starting with the IIIth Dynasty (ca. 2670 - 2600 BCE), with strips around the complete pole (like a mummy) attached by a cord with its extremity projecting outwards like a ribbon.³⁹ The association with movement is evident and consistent with the Heliopolitan cosmogony, focusing on the emergence of Atum out of Nun as Shu, the god of air who separated Earth and sky, and the return to the "first occurrence" ("neheh"-time or eternal recurrence). Early in his reign, Akhenaten identified with Atum and Re-Horakethy (cf. Gem-pa-Aten temple in East Karnak), but soon he avoided all associations invoking the teachings of the netherworld of Osiris and the "first time" of the autogenous Atum and Nun. Indeed, Amarna theology intends no hiddenness, darkness or inertia (cf. infra).

Earlier scenes of deities and their mythological contexts were replaced by family scenes, in which all six daughters of Akhenaten & Nefertiti appeared. Because of the life-giving force of the Aten, the love existing in this "holy family" is portrayed intimately & emphatically. The children caress one another and are tended with affection by their parents, sitting on their lap ...This intimacy is exceptional and clearly innovative.

hands of statue of Akhenaten & Nefertiti
red quartzite - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Along with movement, we also see scenes of kissing, embracing, caressing, mourning & nursing among the royal family. They represented, with previously unthinkable freedom, the love emanating from the Aten who strove for the togetherness of his creatures. This does not mean his artists were free to do what they wanted, for more than likely Pharaoh himself established the new artistic canon. Even the size of the represented individuals did not depend any longer on their relative importance within the scene (sometimes Pharaoh is depicted as smaller than his workers !).

We may speak of "Amarna culture", for Akhenaten also elevated the spoken language of the New Kingdom into a new written language (Late Egyptian). In Late Egyptian, the verbal system (coordinating the expression of movement) changed. It replaced Middle Egyptian developed at the end of the Old Kingdom. Although Middle Egyptian remained the religious & royal language, Late Egyptian literature arose soon after Akhenaten's reign. 

3.3 The singularity of divine mediation : Aten - King - Queen.

The Aten as the light of the Sun keeps the world alive. He creates the world again and again and this continually. The original creation of the world was not discussed, for Nun had to be avoided. Everlastingness (Nun, Osiris) was not the focus, but eternal recurrence (Atum, Re). The underworld, the nocturnal stride of Re, the defeat of Apopis, the bark of Re and the kingdom of Osiris were all ousted. The royal status of the Aten was promulgated with rigor, for the Aten had a royal titulary, wore an uræus and celebrated Sed-festivals ! 

So Akhenaten viewed the Aten, his father, as his Pharaoh. This Aten was more than just one of the deities. Never did the new god take the place of individual deities like Amun. Rather, the Aten took the place of the divine realm as a whole, with light as his "immanence", however with the exclusion of the hidden, the netherworld and the "zep tepi", the first time emerging in the Nun with the self-creation of Atum.

On the other hand, Pharaoh was co-substantially one with his father, the Aten. Previously, the title "son of Re" had been stressing the divine & filial origin of Pharaoh, but Akhenaten went further. This can be read in the Book of Gates, which may have been written during the Amarna Period.

In the 8th Hour, we read the following remarkable articulation of the co-substantial unity between Atum and Re : "I am the son who emerged from his father, I am the father who emerged from his son."⁴⁰ Both are of the "same substance" (cf. the problem of the "homo(i)ousia" of Christ and the Heavenly Father in Christian theology more than fifteen centuries later !). Between the Aten and Akhenaten, the same co-substantiality existed as between the Christian God and His unique Son Christ.

This co-substantiality implied the Aten (as father) was not accessible to anyone but to Akhenaten (as his unique son). And so, Akhenaten (as father) was the personal god of the individual (as adoptive son Akhenaten). Hence, in Amarna religion, piety was a relationship between the Aten and Pharaoh (father versus son) on the one hand, and between Pharaoh and the people on the other hand. Pharaoh set out on processions, performed signs and wonders, and intervened in the destiny of the individual. He was the Great Father of the World. A clear return to the "cannibalistic" powers Pharaoh had in the Old Kingdom.

Hence, the mystical aspect of the religious continuum, part of a proto-rational mode of thought prone to naturalization and universalization, was projected (as it was in the Old Kingdom in a mythical, pre-rational and polytheistic context) on the person of Pharaoh. Total dependence implied personal piety consisted exclusively in absolute loyalty to Pharaoh, to Akhenaten as a divine person, an ego as sole god. In the Amarna Letters, his servants were often compared with the dirt under the feet of Pharaoh, and to fall at his feet was common practice.⁴¹

"Say to the king, my lord, my Sun, my god :
'Message of Zitriyara, your servant, 
the dirt under your feet, and the mire you tread on. 
It fall at the feet of the king, my lord, my Sun, my god.'
7 times and 7 times, both on the stomack and on the back."
Moran, 1992, p.283.

In the hymn of the architects Suti and Hor, the Sun god is called "mother of humans and deities". Akhenaten himself was often named "Nile of Egypt", embodying the annual inundation and the goods of nature. He is also called "mother who bears all". This role of the female element does not belong to the periphery, neither is it of a purely political importance. Although she was never officially co-regent, Akhenaten saw in his wife Nefertiti a goddess. 

As Assmann has rightly pointed out, the Old Kingdom triad : Atum - Shu - Tefnut shines through.⁴² Early in his reign Pharaoh Akhenaten wore the four-feathered crown of Shu (cf. the colossal statues at Karnak). The triad : Aten - Akhenaten - Nefertiti was represented on the stelæ of household altars and object of household cults & private devotions. In no other way was the Aten accessible to the individual. Pharaoh and his queen prayed to the Aten and the people prayed to the triad. Piety as placing a deity "in one's heart" was reserved for Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

What a reduction of the possible spiritual mediators ! Officially, all other deities were rejected. The Aten of Akhenaten was not only above them (with what is unknown revealed to his son, who had the Aten in his heart), but also and foremost against them. Furthermore, no sacred priesthood was put in place which could serve as valid replacement of the holy trinity. Only the latter could guarantee the commoners anything. And ... Akhenaten probably had no sons.

It was this singularity of divine mediation which lies at the root of Akhenaten's failure to establish a religion which would last longer than his reign. Is it probable he thought the Aten would provide for a son to continue his work ? His wives only gave birth to six daughters. As a result, when Akhenaten died, there was no direct line assuring the continuity of what had been realized. The fact of the exclusivity of the Aten (returning much later as the exclusive light, path and truth of the Messiah Jesus Christ) being the theo-ontological complement of this.

photo after Hari, 1985, plate XXVI. Great Hymn to the Aten  by Akhenaten  ca. 1353 - 1336 BCE In the Tomb of Aye West Wall the long 13 text columns begin at the top of the wall and below it are kneeling figures of Ay and his wife  the present text made use of the hieroglyphs  and recent translations because of its special nature, "akhet" (horizon) is translated as "lightland" my translation was mostly inspired by the one done by Lichtheim The translation of The Great Hymn to the Aten is part of my Ancient Egyptian Readings (2016), a POD publication in paperback format of all translations available at maat.sofiatopia.org. These readings span a period of thirteen centuries, covering all important stages of Ancient Egyptian literature. Translated from Egyptian originals, they are ordered chronologically and were considered by the Egyptians as part of the core of their vast literature. Preface : "Adoration of Re-Horakhty-who-rejoices-in-the-lightland, In-his-name-Shu-who-is-the-Aten, living forever ;  the great living Aten, who is in jubilee,  Lord of all that the Disk surrounds,  Lord of the Sky, Lord of the Earth,  Lord of the House-of-the-Aten in Akhet-Aten. Adoration of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt,  who lives by Maat, the Lord of the Two Lands, Nefer-kheperu-Re, Sole-one-of-Re,  the Son of Re who lives by Maat, Lord of Crowns, Akhenaten, great in his lifetime  and of the beloved great Queen, Lady of the Two Lands : Nefer-nefru-Aten Nefertiti,  who lives in health and youth forever !   The Hymn : I) THE ATEN AS RE WITH HIS COURSE morning beauty 1 Says he(*) : Splendid You rise in the lightland of the sky, 2 O living Aten, creator of life ! 3 You have dawned in the eastern lightland. 4 You fill every land with your beauty. (*) Aye, the vizier noon dominion 5 You are beauteous, mighty & radiant. 6 Risen high over every land, 7 your rays embrace the lands, to the limit of all that You made. 8 Being Re, You reach their end. 9 You bend them for your beloved son.  10 Though You are far, your rays are on Earth. 11 Though seen by them, your course is unknown.  night chaos 12 When You set in the western lightland, 13 Earth is in darkness, as if death. 14 The sleepers are in their chambers, heads covered,  no eye seeing the other. 15 One could steal their goods from under their heads, they would not notice it. 16 Every lion comes from its den. The serpents bite. 17 Darkness hovers, Earth is silent. 18 For its creator rests in the lightland. dawn rebirth 19 At dawn You have risen in the lightland. 20 To shine as the Aten of daytime ! 21 You dispel the dark and cast your rays. 22 The Two Lands celebrate daily. 23 Awake they stand on their feet.  You have made them get up. 24 They wash and dress, their arms raised in adoration to your appearance. 25 The entire land sets out to work. 26 All cattle are satisfied with their fodder.  The trees and the grass become green.  27 Birds fly from their nests, their wings praising your Ka.  28 All game animals frisk on their hooves, all that fly and flutter, 29 live when You dawn for them. 30 Ships fare downstream and back upstream, roads lie open when You rise. 31 The fish in the river dart before You. 32 Your rays penetrate the Great Green deep. II) WORKS & NATURE OF THE ATEN the child 33 O You, who make semen grow in women,  34 who creates people from sperm,  35 who feeds the son in his mother's womb, 36 who soothes him to still his tears. 37 You nurse in the womb ! 38 Giver of breath to nourish all creatures. 39 When the child emerges from the womb to breathe on the day of his birth, You open wide his mouth to supply his needs.  the chicken 40 The chick in the egg, chirping in the shell, 41 You give it breath within to sustain its life. 42 When it is complete, it breaks out from the egg. 43 It emerges from the egg, to say it is complete. 44 Walking on its legs when emerging. the Aten as doer : un-saying, solitary, omnipotent 45 How many are your deeds, 46 though hidden from sight. 47 O sole God without equal ! 48 You made the Earth as You desired, You alone. 49 With people, cattle, and all creatures. 50 With everything upon Earth that walks on legs, 51 and all that is on high and flies with its wings. the Two Niles : the Aten as national, international and  transnational governor 52 The foreign lands of Syria and Nubia, and the land of Egypt, 53 You set everybody in his place and supply their needs. 54 They all have their food and their lifetimes are counted. 55 Tongues differ in speech, their characters as well. 56 Their skins are distinct, for You distinguished the peoples. 57 You made the Nile in the Netherworld. 58 You bring it up when You will, to keep those of Egypt alive, for You have created them for yourself. 59 Lord of All who toils for them. 60 Lord of All Lands who shines for them. 61 O Aten of daytime, great in glory ! 62 All distant lands, You make them live. 63 You made a heavenly Nile descend for them. 64 With waves beating on the mountains like the sea, to drench their fields and their towns. 65 How excellent are your ways, O Lord of Eternity ! 66 The Nile from heaven for foreign peoples and all land-creatures that walk on legs. 67 For Egypt the Nile from the Duat. III) THEOLOGY OF THE ATEN life-giving nature of the Aten 68 Your rays nurse all fields. 69 When You shine they live, they grow for You. 70 You made the seasons,  so that all that You made may come to life. 71 Winter cools them, and heat makes them sense You. the Aten is sole witness, sole creator & sole presence 72 You created the sky far away in order to ascend to it,  to witness everything You created. 73 You are alone, shining in your form of the living Aten.   74 Risen, radiant, distant and near. 75 You made millions of forms from yourself alone :  cities, towns, fields, the river's course. 76 All eyes see You above them  as the Aten of the daytime on high. 77 When You are gone, (...) your eye is gone (...) which You have made (?) {for their sake}  Pharaoh as the exclusive mediator of the Aten 78 But even then You are in my heart   79 and there is no other who knows You, only your son, Nefer-kheperu-Re, Sole-one-of-Re, whom You have taught your ways and your might. 80 The ones on Earth come into being by your hand, in the way You made them. 81 When You rise, they live. 82 When You set, they die. 83 You yourself are lifetime itself,  one lives through You.  84 All eyes rest on beauty until You set. 85 All labor ceases when You rest in the West. 86 When You rise, You make all arms firm for the King, 87 every leg is on the move since You founded the Earth, 88 You rouse them for your son, who emerged from your body. 89 The King who lives by Maat,  the Lord of the Two Lands : Nefer-kheperu-Re, Sole-one-of-Re, the Son of Re who lives by Maat, the Lord of Crowns, Akhenaten, great in his lifetime. 90 And the great Queen whom he loves, the Lady of the Two Lands :  Nefer-neferu-Aten Nefertiti, who lives and is rejuvenated forever and ever."

In what follows the "Aten-project" is analyzed from four perspectives : the cultic, the nomic, the cosmic & the mystic.

4 The Aten-project

► CULTIC : dictatorial eradications & an imposed religion

4.1 The brutal end of previous worship, especially of Amun.

"... Egyptian cult is not to be understood as communication between the human and divine realms, but as an act of communication that took place purely in the divine realm, with priests playing the roles of deities in the framework of set constellations." - Assmann, 2001, p.156.

At the time (or just a little later) when Akhenaten changed the didactical name of the Aten, he took the most radical step an Egyptian Pharaoh would ever make. The removal of Horus and Shu preluded, in principle, the end of all worship in the land not dedicated to the Aten ! Akhenaten was the first "founder" of a religion who had all the power of the state at his disposal to implement his revolution. Although he did not succeed, he went about in unseen ways.

His efforts implied the physical obliteration of the old deities by the erasure of their names and sometimes of their pictoral representation as well. An unseen iconoclasm ! Especially Amun and his consort Mut were targeted, but it sporadically affected other deities as well. The plural writing of the word "god" was rejected too. Thoth (the god of magic) was not touched and the persecution was not consistent. 

"We must imagine that the suppression of the old cults was not altogether consistent in the distant provinces, and that Thebes surely was a special case. (...) The discovery of figurines of traditional deities in the houses at Amarna is significant. They must stem from a time when these deities were officially persecuted, thus testifying to their continuing, albeit secret, worship ; at the same time, they touch on the area of magic, which was totally excluded from official religion in the Amarna Period." - Hornung, 1999, pp.86 and 111.

But the name of Amun was erased from the lettes of the diplomatic archive, scarabs, tips of obelisks & pyramids and even his own former name "Amenhotep" was mutilated. Akhenaten wanted to destroy Amun's role as "refuge of the poor", for only the holy triad could guarantee the individual anything.

"The founding of the religion must have been all the more shocking in that Akhenaten proceeded with unprecedented brutality. The new religion was not promoted, it was imposed. Tradition was not questioned, it was persecuted and forbidden. (...) To appreciate the tremendous and consciousness altering significance of these steps, we must bear in mind that this new religion did not make its appearance in a situation of competing doctrines of religious salvation or general lack of orientation, but rather set itself against plain reality and reduced it to an excluded alternative." - Assmann, 2001, pp.199-200.

4.2 New open temples with no statues, roofs or holy of holies.

The new temples erected by the king were totally different than what places of worship had been before. The Amarga religion had no cult statues, for the only form of the Sun god was the Aten, the physical disk of the Sun. Indwelling was done away with. Representations were in sunk relief and depicted the royal couple. The Aten is a disk with a bulge, suggestive of a sphere or globe. Rays emanate downward, ending in hands from which an Ankh-sign hangs, i.e. "giving life". They extend to Pharaoh and his queen, for they were no mere mortals, and were considered to receive the blessings from the Aten directly and then pass them on to their followers, who worshipped them.

the Royal Family adoring the Aten
panel in painted limestone - Tell el-Amarna, royal tombs

Before Amarna, temples were a shrine for the hidden cult image of a deity. Aside from the radiant Sun, the Aten had no image, and so the whole world was his shrine. As the only way to reach the Aten was through prayers and offerings to the holy family (who's central figures were part of the holy triad), no purification, anointment and clothing of the divine image were longer necessary (the daily service stopped). The new artistic style (movement & intimacy) was coupled with a new kind of architecture : the temple at Amarna remained sheltered by high walls from the outside but was open from above to the light of the Sun. The doorways had broken lintels and the processional way through the middle of the columned halls was unroofed. To reduce shadows doorways had raised thresholds. Every cultic act took place under the radiant Sun. That this caused some Assyrian messengers to die in the Sun was only acceptible for the Assyrian king if it profited Akhenaten. 

"Why should messengers be made to stay constantly out in the sun and so die in the sun ? If staying out in the sun means profit for the king, then let the messenger stay out and let him die right there in the sun, but for the king himself there must be a profit. Or otherwise, why should they die in the sun ? As to the messengers we have exchanged (...) do they keep my messengers alive ? They are made to die in the sun !"
Moran, 1992, p.39.

Aerial view of the Central City
the darker are at the bottom is the western edge

Because of this abundance of light, sunk reliefs were used even in the interior of the buildings. There was no need for a remote & dark holy of holies for the cult image of the deity made of costly materials. At dawn, the Aten filled the temple completely and that was his exclusive presence, except for his son Akhenaten, who was the only one to know his father and secure a place for him in his heart.

4.3 Flowers as the perferred offering.

The life-giving and life-sustaining hands of the Aten were everywhere. They could take hold of offerings everywhere they touched. The altars were overfilled with food and although there were still sacrificial offerings of cattle & geeze (the Aten temple had its own slaughterhouse), the offerings were decked with flowers, the preferred offering, still accompanied by the singing of hymns and by incense and music.

4.4 New dynamical representations : globe, Ankh, chariot.

The abolition of all cult statues was radical. The only representation made of the Aten was the shining, radiant globe with its hands extending downwards, giving life to everything touched.

The Ankh became the sign which represented the life-force of the Aten. The holy family riding on a chariot (introduced by the Hyksos, the "foreign kings") on which the Aten poured its rays being the crucial synthetical image of Amarna religion and its accent on movement and change, so typical for the Sun in its daily course (it replaced the barque processions on festival days).

the Royal Family in a Chariot and blessed by the Aten
after Davies, 1905, plate 32A

► NOMIC : radical naturalization of the "old" religion

4.5 Only Aten is divine and there is no god but Aten.

Akhenaten "found" the Aten by discovering the world's dependence on light, to be understood as the foundational principle of his Amarna religion. All could be derived from it and it embraced everything. In the early years, this was put down in the formula "me qedef" or "there is none like him". In the rock tombs of El Amarna we find "wepu heref" or "there is no other but him". Likewise, Pharaoh was "unique like Aten, there being no other great one but him" (cf. tomb of Aya). In the Great Hymn we read that : "O sole god without equal !" (notice the absolutely singular use of "netjer"). The Aten had no enemies, no rivals and no spouse. He had only one son (who had none !).

With his insistence on one god, by affirming that there is no other god than the Aten and that Akhenaten is his messenger, Akhenaten came formally very close to the core of radical monotheism, as we find it rationally expressed in the Koran (cf. "tawhîd"). However, by stressing the physical light of the Sun, he content-wise limited the scope of his metaphysical outlook on the divine. For in the Koran, Allah is both King of the seen and the unseen (cf. Sufism). In the Recital, the idea of Pharaoh's divinity is also radically rejected (this being the main reason why in the Koran the wickedness of the king of Egypt is stressed so much as well as the insistence that Jesus Christ was not the son of God, Allah being without a second).  

However, in the explicit theological ideas which emerged after Amarna (during the Ramesside Period), a more all-comprehensive outlook came to the fore, which coupled the irreversible cognitive decentration & re-equilibration posed by Amarna culture (denaturalization and focus on the oneness of the Aten) with the mythical, pre-rational contexts of the old religion, for Amarna religion had literary denuded the mythologies of the old religion, i.e. the indwelling pantheon of the Old & Middle Kingdoms (nomes + state gods & their spouses, eventually assimilated by Osiris -the king of the dead- & Amun-Re -the king of the gods-). 

By strictly focusing on the visible and by removing his seal of royal approval from the old religion, Akhenaten had generated a massive trauma which explains why eighty years after his reign he was totally forgotten till the start of modern egyptology (cf. repression in the psychoanalytical views of Freud). This focus on the visible is also the main reason why this extremely remarkable Aten-project failed.

"The Amarna episode came to be completely forgotten within about eighty years, but the experience was traumatic enough to produce legendary traditions which -because of their unlocatability in the official cultural memory- became free-floating and thus susceptible to being associated with a variety of semantically related experience. They formed a 'crypt' in the cultural memory of Egypt." - Assmann, 1997, p.216.

4.6 Life-giving light is the only divine Presence.

The indwelling of the gods & goddesses was done with. Instead, an incarnational view was promoted. It was coupled with presence, the natural order of light and the unique divine son of the Aten. The Aten first and foremost manifested as the life-giving light. Because Akhenaten was the masculine pole of the Amarna Trinity, he alone was the son of the Aten, and his queen was his first beloved.

In this sense, the Amarna religion offers a very good example of the exclusivity of presence. Distinctions appear when light dawns, otherwise all is opaque as death. If we look for a definite trace of mythological thought in the naturalized Amarna Solar theology, we may find it in the eternalization of the mystery of the moment of dawn (& dusk), rejoiced by all creatures. However, by identifying the diurnal phase of the daily cycle of the Sun (actually the rotation of the Earth around its pole) with the universal deity, Amarna theology was incapable of dealing with the major concern of the Ancient Egyptians : a good afterlife. The nocturnal phase was not thematized. The netherworld and Osiris were left out of the picture, although the Duat was mentioned. The Aten "rested" in the West and as it were immediately "dawned" in the East, from "horizon" to "horizon".

4.7 Pharaoh is the only one with the Aten in his heart.

Akhenaten is the son of the Aten, his father. He alone knows him. Nobody else does. This exclusivity of the mediation is the second reason why the Aten-project failed. What would happen after Akhenaten left this world ? He would continue to exist in the City of Light for the realm of the dead lay in Akhetaten. So living in the City of Light or being dead were conceived as being identical. What came after death would be an exact copy of the conditions in which one already was. Hence death played no role whatsoever. The afterlife was here already. These teachings must have caused anxiety in the hearts of many Egyptians, used to associate the nocturnal phase with the netherworld and the regeneration of the Solar power (invoking the first time). Scepticism regarding the afterlife became a new literary genre.

"Where are their places ? Their walls have collapsed,
their places do not exist, as though they had never been made.
No one comes from there to describe their condition
and give tidings of their needs
and calm our hearts 
until we, too, arrive where they have gone."
Inyotef : Song, Papyrus Harris 500 (BM 10060), 19th dynasty, cited by Hornung, 1999, p.103.  

► COSMIC : only light, presence and movement

4.8 Light without darkness.

Akhenaten removed all associations with pre-creation and the "zep tepi" :

1. "Re-Herakhty, who rejoices in the horizon in his name Shu, who is Aten". 
   At his ascension he identified his god as Re-Herakhty, associated with the East and the rising Sun (cf. Karnak complex). Akhenaten poses as Atum and gives his god the name "Shu", the god who separates Earth & sky and who maintains their division. The root of his name probably means "the void", "to raise oneself" or "to raise something". With this dogmatic statement, he was initiating a new era, raising his new god to the throne of unique, universal deity. But not without making a statement connecting the whole enterprise with the old pantheon and the grand ideals projected on the Old Kingdom and its theology, especially Heliopolitan theology ;

2. "Re, the ruler of the twin horizons, who rejoices in the horizon in his name Re as the father who returns as Aten."
   When the City of Light was under construction and major reforms were underway, Amenhotep IV changed his name and later the didactic name of the Aten. The titulary had only Re and Aten, the latter being the physical manifestation of the former. All bonds with the old pantheon had been broken. The new dawn had been heralded by Amenhotep IV, and now even that name itself could be mutilated in order to harm Amun. For only the Aten and his son reigned for all of eternity in the City of Light. 

4.9 Presence without absence.

What happened with the Sun after it had set was not discussed. When the Aten "has gone away" the world is left in the sleep of death, only remaining in the heart of the king which was the enduring place of the Aten.

"Another technique of forgetting is silence. This technique was practiced by the Amarna texts, which never speak of what they implicitly reject." - Assmann, 1997, p.216. 

4.10 Unity without multiplicity. 

The multiple expressions of the divine are reduced to just one : light.

► MYSTIC : exclusive & highly subjectified

4.11 Without Pharaoh no salvation.

Without Akhenaten, there was nobody to mediate on behalf of the people. For Pharaoh's relationship with the Aten was emulated by the common people in their interaction with Akhenaten. Take Pharaoh out of the Aten-project and the Aten has no son or representative to be worshipped. Nobody understood the Aten, except Akhenaten. Hence, the matter of "salvation" (in the Ancient Egyptian religion this implied a secure place in the presence of the god) was totally placed in the hands of Pharaoh. Never would the Aten directly intervene for commoners. His life-giving force (although touching and blessing everything it touched) could only be summoned for particularities by Akhenaten. 

This exclusivity points to the deep impact left by some of the mystical experiences of Akhenaten. They had given him the strength to put aside beliefs cherished for thousands of years. That these experiences were not mature can be derived from the fact that he placed himself in the center. That his god Aten was unable to help people without his son did not impress the king as a limitation of his concept of the divine. His understanding of his mystical experiences was rooted in his personality, not in any abstract self-knowledge or in the divine itself. His mysticism was childish.

4.12 Eradication of Amun's interventions on behalf of the common people.

The fact Amun-Re, the king of the gods, who lived in grand temples, also listened to the prayers of common people in their homes (and evolution which started with the rise of individualism in the late Old Kingdom and blossomed in the Middle Kingdom) limited the spiritual status of Pharaoh as the sole mediator, and caused Amun to be abolished. Only Akhenaten listened to prayers and forwarded them to the Aten. No direct contact between the realm of the divine and the commoners was possible. As in the Old Kingdom, only Akhenaten had the exclusivity of mediation. Hence, not only the primordial world, the first time and the variety of deities were rejected, but also the slowly emerging notion that the divine also exists for common people. This must have been very difficult to accept. This is testified by the fact that immediately after the death of Akhenaten, the exclusive worship of the Aten was abolished, as well as the ban on the remainded of the pantheon and the denial of the afterlife in the netherworld (without Akhenaten no salvation).

"Jan Assmann has pointed to the impoverishment of social and religious life which this discontinuance of festivals entailed. Previously, festivals continually afforded fresh opportunities to approach the divine and beseech care and salvation from all sorts of afflictions." - Hornung, 1999, p.110.

Hence, the Amarna project was characterized by a radical elitism, for the heliomorphism of the divine realms could only be of any value in this world through the anthropomorphism of the Sun god in the unique person of Akhenaten. In Christianity, an analogous process took place, for he who sees Christ the Son -who is both perfectly human and Divine- sees the Father -absolutely Divine- and only the Son is the light, the truth and the way (the role of Nefertiti in the Amarna Trinity was played in the Christ-drama by Jesus' mother Mary and later the "Holy Roman Church", both representatives of the "Holy Spirit").

Akhenaten's exclusivity abrogated the notion of having one's deity in the heart (cf. personal piety). People were radically cut off from the divine and only Akhenaten (interpreting his own mystical experiences with an uni-polar megalomanic superstructure) knew the divine.

"It is clear that even public confession of one's personal god had been forbidden to the individual during the Amarna Period when Aya, the successor of Tutankhamun, boasts, 'I have removed the wretchedness, each person can now pray to his god.' The only resort was the internal. The gods and goddesses hibernated 'in the hearts' of their adorants as objects of longing, mourning, and the injunction that circulated clandestinely : 'Beware of him ! Proclaim him to great and small.'" - Assmann, 2001, p.229.

4.13 The mystical experience of Nature ?

Some see Amarna religion as a good example of a mysticism of nature, i.e. the direct experience of the divine in and through stations, states & processes of nature. However, this kind of mystical experience was part of the Ancient Egyptian heritage long before Akhenaten. New Kingdom demystification and naturalization brought about by the New Solar Theology made all kinds of contextual & polytheist associations vanish. This made the worship of nature (albeit the Sun) stand erect and naked without overgrowth. 

The New Solar Theology and its radicalization in Amarna religion points to a kind of "philosophy of nature" avant la lettre. Although these elements are present, one should never forget Amarna religion would not have existed if Akhenaten's mystical experiences would not have taught him he alone had access to the divine. This alone points away from the tenets of a mysticism of nature to the superstructures of a mysticism of God-as-Person.

5 Why was Akhenaten's monotheism sterile ?

"Monotheism is but imperialism in religion." - Breasted, 1972, p. 315.

Let us introduce the following simple definitions :

1. polytheism : there are an finite number of Gods and Goddesses ; 

2. monolatry : there is One Great God but reversibly so ; 

3. henotheism : there is One God who manifests as many Gods and Goddesses ; 

4. monotheism : there is numerically only 1 God and no Gods and Goddesses.

To speak of a "mature" monotheism, at least the following components should prevail :

1. radical Aloneness : the essence of the Divine remains ineffable (radical un-saying) ; 

2. unity of being : the essence of the Divine is Unity ; 

3. singularity : there is numerically only 1 God.

Egyptologists of the first hour believed polytheism appeared historically after monotheism. In the Adamic story they adhered to (cf. Torah), the former was the result of disobediance to the One God, invoked by the "people of the book" (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). The discovery & study of the Pyramid Texts (from 1881 on) scattered that view, for a variety of deities were active (a lot of divine names and forms). Not one of them was worshipped as "the only Great One" and nobody ruled over the others in any exclusive way (in fact, monolatry reigned : more than one god could be called "Great One").

Gaston Maspero was the first to read an original polytheism in Ancient Egypt. He disregarded the confusing fact the word "netjer" (god) was also used in an absolute, singular sense in personal names, wisdom literature and generalizing propositions. Did this not point to the presence of a "Great One" ? Indeed, others conjectured the existence of a "dieu des sages", a monolatery "for the initiated", co-habitating with popular polytheist figurations of the divine. So original monism was considered possible again ! Hermann Junker conjectured the existence of an anonymous "Great One" in the Old Kingdom.

Hornung made the first step to reconcile the positions by allowing for a fugal original monotheism in the early cosmogonies associated with Atum, while stressing the polytheistic, dynamical and elusive (quantum) nature of the creative order, to which the deities belonged. In doing so, he moved too much to a position in which the unicity of the divine was lost. Assmann suggested the idea of the bi-polar nature of the experience of the divine in Ancient Egypt, although not in these terms. He prefers "explicit" (the search for the Great One) and "implicit" (the figurations of the one in the millions) theology. 

The present work characterizes the spirituality of Ancient Egypt as an unending quest for a balanced religion (Maat), in which both the "Great One" and the "millions" appear : henotheism. Egypt accepted multiple deities, but acknowledged the greatness of some (monolatry) before it realized the hidden Great One is before (and later "in") all deities, or henotheism (only when Atum creates himself is a form of monotheism at work, but only fugally for Atum immediately splits). "One" and "many" were always part of the spiritual continuum and this refutes the notion of a clear-cut identification of the "original" religion as either "unified" (monistic) or "differentiated" (pluralistic). In the Old Kingdom, fugal monism was taken for granted, for the divine was originally One but had immediately differentiated. However, no deity was addressed & worshipped as the "Great One" over and against the many. Was the "Great One" present in every differentiation (aspect), but clearly not in the same way ? This henotheist view became fashionable in the Middle Kingdom, and would culminate in the mature henotheism of Late Ramesside theology.

The confusion regarding the singular noun "god" and the all-comprehensive and universal role played by Nun, Atum & Ptah in the cosmogonies hand in hand with the pantheon, can be taken away by the observation that mature mystical experiences of the Divine (in states, stations & spiritual orders) always call for a superstructure involving a "coincidentio oppositorum" with two complementary sides or polarities :

(a) beyond affirmation & negation versus affirmation or negation in the order of logic : the Divine is being, non-being, beyond being and beyond not-being ; the essence of this "fifth" remains veiled but its attributes & modes are confirmed in all possible states ;
(b) un-saying (ineffable) versus named (knowable) in the order of thought : the essence of the Divine can not be known or experienced but the Presence of the Divine realized ;
(c) uncreated versus created in the order of being : the essence and names of the Divine are uncreated (but the names create) whereas the first cause of creation is not the ultimate cause, although everything is created by It.

"The arcanum of alchemy* is one of these archetypal ideas that fills a gap in the Christian view of the world, namely, the unbridged gulf between the opposites, in particular between good and evil. Only logic knows a tertium non datur ; nature consists entirely of such 'thirds', since she is represented by effects which resolve an opposition - just as a waterfall mediates between 'above' and 'below'. The alchemists sought for that effect which would heal not only the disharmonies of the physical world but the inner psychic conflict as well, the 'affliction of the soul', and they called this effect the lapis Philosophorum. (...) Hence they sought to find ways and means to produce that substance in which all opposites were united. It had to be material as well as spiritual, living as well as inert, masculine as well as feminine, old as well as young, and -presumably- morally neutral. It had to be created by man, and at the same time, since it was an 'increatum', by God himself, the Deus terrestris."
Jung, C.G. : Mysterium Coniunctionis, in : The Collected Works, Routledge & Kegan - London, 1978, volume 14, p.473 & 475 (*) al-chemy : or the art of "Chem", "Egypt".

In the Old Kingdom these polarities came down to :

(hidden) Nun, Atum, "the Great One" , primordial time, first time ... and
(manifest) Shu, Tefnut, Re and the "millions"

In the more individualistic Middle Kingdom, Osiris (NN) ruled the affairs of the afterlife as "king of the dead" and Amun-Re was both "hidden", "king of the gods" and "judge". The old pantheon allowed for the existence of both polarities, but often swayed to the polytheistic extreme of mythical variety hand in hand with mythical and pre-rational thought, i.e. with no stable concepts. The Middle Kingdom saw the advent of a more conscious form of henotheism. The New Kingdom theologies (New Solar, Amarna & Ramesside) demystified divine variety by stressing Re had many manifestations. But besides Re, other deities continued to operate. Nevertheless, the reduction was taken a step further by Akhenaten : monotheism.

Only in Amarna religion were all other deities removed. This major step was unfortunately coupled with an exclusion of darkness and an inflation of the cult of personality, rendering the blend sterile and doomed for perdition.

In the post-Amarna Period of the New Kingdom, the polarity had changed into :

►(hidden) Nun, Atum, "the Great One", primordial time, first time ... and
►(manifest) Amun-Re who becomes the millions
►(in the Memphis Theology the same is said of Ptah)

Amarna radicalized the position and might have worked were it not in the first place for Akhenaten himself. He was unable to truly depersonalize his own mystical experiences and institutionalize his teachings, for example in a sacred priesthood instead of in his beloved Nefertiti. They forgot to be mortals and to understand the consequences of death. Both suggest that Akhenaten had lost the ability to tax the real (psychosis ?).

Moreover, by trying to negate the netherworld and death (also his own), Akhenaten failed to truly universalize the Aten and produce a workable bridge from the old conception of the afterlife to one which did more than just remove the issue and for the rest remain silent. The destruction of the name of Amun shows that Amarna religion provided for an enemy on which to project the cause of all evil (the scape-goat method, so prominent in the history of monotheism). Instead of accepting that their denial of darkness did away with regeneration, they dealt with it as if it was the cause of their weakness and downfall.

Besides these major handicaps, his shaky & naive enterprise was formidable. But how long could it have continued to work after Akhenaten's sonless dusk ? With no mediator left, the Aten had become unreachable, except in death (for then the faithful would join Akhenaten in his City of Light). Was Akhenaten a mystic gone insane ?

Akhenaten's Aten-project did not fail because he was a monist. But is being a monist not the same as being a fundamentalist or in some way intolerant as Hornung claims ? ⁴³ Indeed, true monotheism invokes a solitary God, a "Great One" who is in principle unreachable, and thus in no way salvic. Without a Divine Company, such a solitary God is bound to create a world uncapable to reflect It, Him or Her. This explains the importance of exclusivist prophesy in dogmatic monotheism : by sanctifying a set of texts, a medium can be invoked. Hence, true revelation is a direct infusion from heaven.

The Aten-project failed because Akhenaten's monism was restricted to the diurnal aspect of the course of the Aten only, namely the presence of light at the exclusion of darkness. This kind of one-sidedness, were a part of an obvious totality or whole is repressed, overtook the Aten-project. Fundamentalists do not tolerate the original teaching to be sullied, i.e. stained with foreign elements. In this case, Akhenaten was the creator of the original teaching, so he could hardly have been the first fundamentalist in history. 

On the negative, Akhenaten champions the naive childishness of Pharaonic power and its traumatic effect on a whole nation. Instead of being a fundamentalist, he appeared as a peace-loving dictator with an inflated, megalomanic sense of himself (typical for unbalanced & incomplete higher states of consciousness). Did his mediations & interventions "work" for the people ? His Aten is not the "Great One", precisely because the nocturnal was eliminated (namely the hidden, the dark, the unknown).

On the positive, his religion initiated the emergence of a radical monotheistic view on the divine. By stressing the mathematical unicity of the divine, Akhenaten caused a major cognitive disequilibrium, forcing people to abolish the temples and interiorize their spiritual horizon, i.e. seek the "god in the heart". Paradoxically, the rejected part of reality in Amarna religion (the hidden) became the religious conscience of every individual.  

Despite his teaching only Pharaoh could mediate, temple cults continued to exist and personal piety indeed developed. After Amarna, during the Ramesside period, a tremendous explosion of cultural activity took place. Without Amarna, the picture would have been quite different. After Amarna no violent reactions followed. What had been achieved on the positive side had to be consolidated together with the best of the old (as was usual in Ancient Egypt). Egypt returned to the pantheon, but renewed its theology. A consequent and mature henotheism saw the light.

6 Ancient Egyptian religion after Amarna

6.1 Restoration & the breakthrough of the Ramesside renewal of the old.

In the mortuary temple at Thebes of Smenkhkare, there was an Amun cult. For Hornung (1999, p.109) Smerkhkare was Akhenaten's son-in-law. For Reeves (2001, p.173), Nefernefruaten-Nefertiti (the great queen of Akhenaten) and Smerkhkare were one and the same person, suggesting a co-regency after the 12th regnal year. At the death of Akhenaten (close to the end of the 17th regnal year, following the wine vintage at the end of September or beginning of October), she became Pharaoh, just like Queen Hatshepsut had done before her. Parts of the burial equipment prepared for the use of Akhenaten's queen and (later) co-regent, was found in Tutankhamun's tomb and carry the portrait of their original owner. Smenkhkare (alias Nefertiti) had been impressive and Osirian !

Queen Nefertiti
by Thutmose - still in Germany ...

In two late tomb chapels at Tell el-Amarna, Amun is mentioned next to the Aten. Egyptologists discovered a partially mitigated reform while Akhenaten was still alive ! Tomb 55 contained the mummy of a person of fragile constitution, related to Tutankhamun, in his mid-thirties in excess of 35 years. Weigall argued that the occupant of the coffin was the owner of the four magical bricks found in it. These were inscribed with "the Osiris". This tomb was not the original burial place of the body & its equipment. The latter had probably been transferred from el-Amarna during the reign of Tutankhamun. For Reeves (2001, p.83), tomb 55 was "in fact a hasty reburial of mother and son, accompanied by a random selection of funerary items originally prepared for other and very different owners".

"... it was emphasized that not a scrap of evidence may be cited from the tomb to link any one of any thing in it with Akhenaten's successor ; on the contrary, the inscriptions and their context offer as good a proof as may reasonably be hoped for that the burial was Akhenaten himself - and this is a conclusion with which the most recent anatomical and dental estimated of the occupant's age of death now concur." - Reeves, 2001, p.173, my italics.

Akhenaten died in the prime of life, probably in the summer of 1336 BCE.

the skull of the body from tomb 55
presumably Akhenaten

The Atenite Triad had no son who could reiterate the role of the father, but only six daughters. Hence, the Atenite Ennead had only two males : the Aten and Akhenaten (merging into one and the same, namely Akhenaten). There was no unequivocal male heir. Loving Smenkhkare (alias Nefertiti) was crowned Pharaoh. Her temple heralds the return to Amun. But this reign was brief. 

Tutankhaten (the living image of the Aten), of uncertain origin, called : "the king's bodily son" (as mentioned in a stray text found at Hermopolis with others depicting Kiya), succeeded Smenkhare (Nefertiti) in ca. 1333 BCE. He was probably the son of Akhenaten and Kiya, the "greatly beloved wife of the king", a lady of lesser rank who had given Akhenaten a son (albeit outside the divine triad). He had no direct part in the Atenite myth, which could only become fruitful through "the king's wife" Nefertiti, which never happened. So in accord with the patrilineal principle, Tutankhaten was direct in line for the throne.

On the back of his golden throne, the royal couple, Tutankhaten and Ankhesenpaaten, are represented beneath the radiant Aten. An attempt to compromize with Amun is prefigurated. Three years later, Tutankhaten changed his name in Tutankhamun ("the living image of Amun") and abandoned Akhetaten. The court was moved to Memphis, whence the text of the "Reformation Stela", proclaiming the end of the reform and the renewal of the old cults. Pharaoh is again designated as the beloved of Amun-Re, Atum, Re-Herakhty, Ptah and Thoth. This variety was necessary to put his royal seal of approval again on the important cults of the land, the temples of which had become a public footpath.

Tutankhamun died (was murdered ?) ca. 1323 BCE. His principal advisor Ay, who buried the young king in style (but in a tomb cut for someone else), became king. When the latter was still a boy, he had first acted as regent for the new king. He also was the father-in-law to Akhenaten (the father of Nefertiti ?). His four-year reign ends in total haze. Ay's tomb is a combination of the models of the radical innovations brought by Amarna (it also contains the Great Hymn to the Aten), with a return to mythological contextualization and derivations from the traditions of the old pantheon. Both tombs contain excepts from the Book of the Netherworld and the Book of the Dead. Ay died in 1319 BCE. General Horemheb seized the throne for himself.

This last member of the 18th Dynasty, used hymns in which the Sun god was again embedded in his traditional mythological niche, making Nut and Hathor mother of the Aten ! The return to the old pantheon was total. But, the tomb of high priest Parennefer of Amun at Karnak was modelled on Amarna tombs. The scenes of Sun worship, with rejoicing on the part of everything touched by its life-force, were not eliminated, neither were the chariots.

Pharaoh Horemheb (ca. 1319 - 1292 BCE) returned unambigeously to pre-Amarna days (33 years earlier). The administration was renewed, and the army reformed. The primacy of the Aten was brought to a formal end, with the dismantlement of Akhenaten's monuments. A series of kings were consigned to oblivion, namely Akhenaten, Smenkhkare (Nefertiti), Tutankhamun and Ay were struck from the records and their monuments usurped. This period had to be forgotten, and history rewritten. Akhenaten became the bogeyman of oral tradition.

In the opinion of the historians of the Ramesside Period that was to follow, general Horemheb was the first legitimate king since Amenhotep III. The Amarna kings fell victim to proscription. Horemheb returned to the traditional rock-cut tomb, but he replaced the Amduat with the new Book of the Netherworld. He died in 1292 BCE and had appointed a front-line officer called Paramessu to be his successor. The latter ascended the throne as Ramesses I, and founded the XIXth Dynasty. He died in 1290 BCE and (for the first time in sixty years) the crown passed to his son who ascended the throne as Sethos I. He reigned till 1279 BCE and in this period he tried to obliterate the traces of Amarna. The memory of Akhenaten was persecuted.

For Assmann, Ramesside theology was preluded by Amarna religion.⁴⁴ For Hornung the theology of the post-Amarna period was a continuation of the New Solar Theology.⁴⁵ However, it is clear the radicality of Amarna religion influenced the climate from which the old pantheon could emerge into something new. Especially the emergence of an integral & antinomic formulation of the divine may be grasped as a reaction against the one-sided approach of the Sun god in Amarna religion (light, life and day-time at the exclusion of darkness, death and night-time). The trauma caused by Amarna had triggered a more comprehensive re-articulation of the Ancient Egyptian cognitive horizon of the experience of the divine (mysticism, religious experience, personal piety) and of its theology, without the return of Akhenaten's radical monotheism of light. The repression of the old pantheon and the demise of the temples had interiorized the spiritual inclinations to the point of transformation. Intellectually, the Theban & Memphite theologians would made great leaps forward by developing mature henotheism (of Amun or Ptah). More than ever before, the common people could communitate with their gods, and although remote, Amun listened to the poor and was a compassionate great one god, hidden & alone.

The political system of the late New Kingdom collapsed under the Rameses of the late Ramesside period or XXth Dynasty (ca. 1188 - 1075 BCE). For after Rameses III, the last great Pharaoh able to repell the new invasions by the sea people (Philistines, Libyans), a rapid decay of internal order prevailed, leading to famine, strike, maladministration & the pilage of royal sepultures. The XXth Dynasty ends (ca.1075 BCE) with civil strife and the split of Egypt. With it the New Kingdom is over and the Third Intermediate Period started (ca. 1075 - 664 BCE). The chief priests of Thebes (in charge of the rocking barks & statues of the divine oracles of Amun-Re and hence omnipotent) became the hereditary monarchs (of Southern Upper Egypt) while the kings of Tanis wield power in Northern Lower Egypt (the Delta).

6.2 The integral, antithetic synthesis : Amun-Re who becomes millions.

Hornung is right to claim that in the minds of the Ancient Egyptians, the absolute unity of the "greatest" transcends the order of actual existence with its gods, goddesses, natural kingdoms and humans. The primordial waters & Atum had been in existence before anything else had come into existence. Atum was also associated with the setting Sun, returning to the netherworld (so to speak "in touch" with the primordial waters of the world before creation).

The Great One was not active before creation. Nun was inert. Atum self-engenders in the transition between pre-creation & creation : the first occurrence ("zep tepi"). His unity is co-terminal with Shu & Tefnut and when the rising of the primordial hill starts, the first time is over. This mythical time was the continuous & endless emergence of millions of beings out of chaos through the auto-erotical orgasm of Atum. Participating in this process of emergence and actualization was by itself life-giving.

"Words spoken by him whose names are secret, the Lord of All, who said to the Silent Ones who raged when the Entourage sailed : Go in peace ! I will relate to you the two deeds which my own heart did for me within the Coiled One in order that falsehood might be silenced. I have done four good deeds within the portal of the horizon. I made the four winds so that everyone might breathe in his time. One of my actions. I made the great inundation so that the poor as well as the rich might be strong. One of my actions. I made very man equal to his fellow, and I forbade them to do wrong, but their hearts disobeyed what I had said. One of my actions. I made their hearts not to forget the West, in order to make god's-offerings to the gods of the nomes. One of my actions."
Coffin Texts, spell 1130, VII 462-464.

The New Solar Theology had demystified the old pantheon by stressing light & movement, i.e. creation as theophany of Re. Amarna theology had been the radical consequence and brought forth :

• the concept of a Great One against and above all other gods & goddesses and 

• the awareness of the importance of a complete picture of this One, which in the New Kingdom implied both the diurnal and nocturnal phases of the daily course of Re, and not, as in Amarna, only daytime. 

After Amarna, it became clear to the Ancient Egyptian theologians of Amun-Re that their "Great One" was both unified & multiple, unknown & knowable, transcendent & immanent, hidden & manifest, absolute & relative, eternal & temporal, alone & together, distant & far, etc. Individual spirituality (the "god in the heart") became common. 

Moreover, in Ramesside theology, this antithetic & antinomic bi-polarity of the divine is attributed to One Great Amun-Re who tolerated the existence of gods & goddesses next to him. The latter represent the principles of change which govern the realm of actual existence.⁴⁶ All these deities ultimately derive from the Great One ⁴⁷ and find there alone ways to become greater (through his beauty). This suggests that the gods & goddesses were but attributes, aspects, Self-manifestations of the hidden One. They represented his togetherness and nearness and compensated for his essence, which is absolutely self-sufficient in aloneness. However, these divinities existed next to the Great One, who did not abrogate them. The Ramesside Period

"... developed an entirely new terminology that made it possible to conceive of the diversity of deities as the colorful reflection of a hidden unity. It worshipped the unity as the hidden god, the deus absconditus et ineffabilis, the 'sacred ba of gods and men' whose names, symbols, emanations, manifestations, shadows and images were the various deities." - Assmann, 2001, p.241.

The multiple figurations of the gods & goddesses were mysteriously united by this Great One, so to speak ruling over the "Two Lands" of the seen & the unseen. The Great One is above all gods & goddesses and encompasses both the unseen and the seen. But the One is not against them !

Assmann points out that in Ramesside theology, the concept of the "hiddenness" and "primordial oneness" changed. The temporal sequence of pre-existence, first time and actual existence was ontologized in the sense that the hidden unity was found in and no longer before the multiple figurations ! ⁴⁸ The same can be found in the Memphis Theology, were Ptah encompasses the whole temporal sequence, making things with his words. 

The Great One Amun-Re is present in the divinity of the gods & goddesses (selective nearness, day) as a hidden, transcendent power (remoteness, night) hic et nunc. The Great One is not against the multiple figurations of deities next to Amun-Re. This was the tribute payed to the old religion, the theology of "constellations". The formal conditions of a complete outlook on the bi-polarity of the Divine is realized, however without generalizing the immanence beyond the figurations of gods & goddesses (as Akhenaten had done by identifying the divine realm as a whole with the light of the Aten, however at the exclusion of darkness but against the plurality of deities). Because of this renewal of the pantheon, the traditional deities could exist next to the Great One. This shows the exclusivity of the Aten (Akhenaten's monotheism) had been the breaking-point for Ramesside theologians, who preferred henotheism. 

Furthermore, to conceive the hidden Great One as "the sacred ba of gods and men"⁴⁹  opened the possibility to transcend the overt cultic forms (the deities) by immanence "in the heart". This unwill to actually abolish the "gods & goddesses" and replace them by names, symbols, emanations, manifestations & images of the hidden Great One against the other deities, may reveal a weak point in this proto-rational discourse. These deities were standard mythological solutions to all kinds of nomic, regional and nation-wide problems. Pre-logical (mythical), pre-rational and proto-rational thoughts were woven together to shape these archetypal forms. They were the concrete concepts and ideas which -in proto-rational thought & language- could not be decontextualized. 

The ultimate validation of these concrete concepts could not be realized at the proto-rational cognitive level of thought. Ramesside theology arrived at a bi-polar concept of the divine, but was unable to relinquish its images. It arrived at a "hidden" henotheism of mystery & secrecy. This "hiddenness" of the Great One is in itself a decontextualization of the various deities and hence the first step towards a rational discourse. However, the fact that this unity was ineffable and that it was left open how this "hidden" power is able to differentiate is such a variety shows that this first step did not go beyond the threshold between the perfected proto-rationality of Ramesside theology and the beginning of monotheist reasoning, which calls to eliminate the divine status of the deities to the advantage of the Great One Alone above and against all gods & goddesses. Only then is the formal condition of monotheism, the theology of formal reason, fulfilled.

In that sense, the Great Hymn to the Aten contains the first radical, demystified departure from polytheism and henotheism. The reason why it failed in Ancient Egypt, was because the Aten is against all other deities (the dogmatic definition of the Aten is also incomplete because of the negation of the nocturnal). Amarna theology blossomed around a radically exclusive Solar religion limiting mediation to a sheer mortal and not to something more lasting after him. But the teachings themselves evidence traces of a decontextualized use of its concrete concepts (exclusivity of the Aten, story of the two Niles), indicating a level of thought leaping here and there beyond the proto-rational. Had Akhenaten assimilated the noctural phase in his teaching and provided for a more universal principle of mediation (like a sacred Aten priesthood), then Amarna religion would have had the features of a spirituality based on a natural philosophy. However, Amarna shows that for the Ancient Egyptians, the variety of deities was the foundation of their spirituality. They only touched monotheism but failed to understand its consequences fully. Akhenaten's "heresy" is precisely his radical rejection of multiplicity "in principle".

The Ancient Egyptians were unable to arrive at a rational monotheistic discourse and remained ante-rational henotheists. The best they could do was a splendid proto-rational synthesis of the bi-polar architecture of the spiritual experience of humanity, to which they gave form in an outspoken original, lasting and bewildering figural, pictoral & imaginal henotheist language. But in this language, the Great One is the hidden binding-stuff between the deities. How this Great One could remain unified facing the millions (who retained their own divinity) remained the mystery of his "ba".

Let us read this Hymn to Amun of the Ramesside period :

1      200th Chapter.
        Secret of manifestations and sparkling of shape.
        Marvellous God, rich in forms.
        All gods boast of Him,
5      to magnify themselves in His beauty,
        to the extent of His Divinity.
        Re himself is united with His body.
        He is the great one in Heliopolis.
        He is called Tatenen.
        Amun, who comes out of the Nun,
        to guide the peoples.

10    Another of His forms are the Eight,
        primeval one of the primeval ones, begetter of Re.
        He completed himself as Atum, 
        being of one body with him.
        He is the Universal Lord, 
        who initiated that which exists.

        His Soul, they say, is the one who is in the sky.
15    He is the one who is in the netherworld, 
        foremost of the East.
        His Soul is in the sky, His body in the West.
        His statue is in southern Heliopolis,
      elevating His body.

        One is Amun,
        who keeps Himself concealed from them,
        who hides Himself from the gods,
        no one knowing His nature.
20    He is more remote than the sky,
        He is deeper than the netherworld.

        None of the gods knows His true form.
        His image is not unfolded in the papyrus rolls.
        Nothing certain is testified about Him.

25    He is too secretive for His Majesty to be revealed,
        He is too great to be enquired after,
        too powerful to be known.

        People immediately fall face to face into death
        when His Name is uttered knowingly or unknowingly.
        There is no god able to invoke Him by it.
       He is Soul-like, hidden of name, like His Secrecy.

As Assmann pointed out, this hymn has a bipartite division : the first half deals with "affirmative" (positive) theology, the second with "negating" (negative) theology. The Great One is rich in forms but his name is unknown even to the deities. The "one who makes himself into millions".

This ineffable nature and greatness of Amun did not entail the next step, namely to posit the Great One against the deities, and to understand existence as a whole (the world) as a Self-manifestation of the Great One alone (in an endless number of attributes, and not only as "light" as had been the case for Akhenaten). This radical, rational step (although contents-wise the Great One now also manifested in the nocturnal phase) was not taken. Instead, the world by itself remained a differentiated divine existence worshipped in the various cults (old religion).

Observe these three different types of theism in the spirituality of Ancient Egypt :

1. fugal monotheism in the Old Kingdom : the primordial Atum, Lord of All, is the Great One who creates the gods & goddesses, but he exists only perpetually in the "first time" which re-occurs and hence represents a mythical eternity - although Self-generated, Atum's coming into existence entails a divine company, for Atum splits into Shu and Tefnut ;

2. Solar monotheism of light in Amarna culture : the Aten is the Great One who is and creates all with light and who is above and against all other deities ;

3. henotheism of hiddenness in the Ramesside Period : Amun-Re is the Great One who is the hidden "soul" of everything tolerating other divinities, who are the One's many faces. Like Ptah in the Memphis Theology, Amun-Re encompasses the all (pan-en-theism). The formula "one who is all" is bi-polar : a hidden, ineffable One essence and a hidden oneness behind the multiple ("omnia unum esse et unum omnia") was realized by Ramesside theology hand in hand with a variety of deities and cults. Moreover, the "unity" of the manifold was internalized as the implicit soul of the world ("anima mundi") living in the heart of every individual (cf. Vedantic philosophy with its "atman = brahman", the Qabalah of Adam Kadmon and the Hermetical correspondences between macro- and microcosmos).

Which monotheist conclusions did Ramesside theologians refused to draw from the experience of Akhenaten ? There is no Great One, if there are other divinities worshipped next to Him. He is One without a Second, let be Millions. The Aten-project in itself was monotheistic and radical (the Sole Aten was against other cults). Restricted by a theology which was exclusively Solar and by Akhenaten's exclusion of the Sun's nocturnal phase, Amarna religion had been unable to take root.

Major drawbacks inherent in the ante-rational cultural form of Ancient Egyptian civilization were :

1. the undying alliance with the old pantheon ;

2. the figural, pictoral (iconic) symbolizations of their concrete concepts which did not help the process of formal decontextualization ;

3. the deep-rooted cultural habit of the "multiplicity of approaches" (religious & artistic coherence and compromize instead of relative consistency -as in the Amarna teachings-) ; 

4. continuous renewal of the old (conservationism which was deeply against ideological revolutions).

6.3 the Mosaic revelation, "YHVH Elohîm" and the elimination of the figural & the inert.

Exodus 2,5-9 : "And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river ; and her maidens walked along by the river's side ; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child : and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. (...) And she called his name Moses : and she said, Because I drew him out of the water."
Acts 7,22 : "And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds."

As Assmann rightly pointed out, Moses is of memory, while Akhenaten is of history.⁵⁰  Nevertheless, on the "Israel Stela" of Merneptah (the Pharaoh who succeeded Rameses II) a people "Israel" appears for the first time in a list of the places and peoples ruled by Egypt (including Canaan). Biblical tradition affirms the children of Israel helped Ramesses II to expand Piramses (Pi-Riamsese) in the eastern Delta. This would make the "daughter of Pharaoh" the daughter of Seti I and situate one of the Exodus-stories (cf. Luban, 2003) during the reign of Ramesses II, raised to believe Moses was his brother. Moses, as a prince of Egypt, must have been aware of the problems in New Kingdom theology. And in view of his prophetic abilities later, he no doubt was interested in it too. What could he have learned from the Jews about Abraham and the foundation of their traditions ? 

"I assert that the Book of Exodus is a story, containing elements of both truth and fiction. It is a composition that incorporates bits of reality from perhaps four separate exodoi of the Children of Israel ... " - Luban, 2003, p.9, my italics.

The Divine given to Abraham was "Elohîms" ("ALHYM"), a plurality of Divine faces, pronounced as "Eloha" in the singular. To Abraham, the "Elohîm" are living, creative forces, able to love and to change the world as they will (the "Sephiroth" of the Qabalah).

"And YHVH appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamrê as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day ; And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him ..."
Genesis, 18:1-2, my italics.

These Divine energies are not a pantheon of "higher beings". They are the manifold expression of the One who's essence remained unnamed : YHVH. But the manifold of Divine expressions and presences are recognized (known) as a hierarchy of operational energies rooted in a transcendent Divine ineffable essence. "Eloha", the first of the "Elohîm", is the Creator of All, Creator of heaven & Earth, the first cause. The Elohîm" appears as an organized plurality under the unity of Adonai, or the "Lord", the vocal singular form of the absolutely transcendent ineffable "YHVH", as such unknown to Abraham, to whom only "ALHYM" was revealed. 

After realizing he was Hebrew, after killing an Egyptian and being expelled, so the good book goes, Moses finally climbed the sacred mountain, the Horeb. While he had his eye wide open, "YHVH" (the) "Elohîm" revealed to him the core of Divine exteriority ("AHYH"), the Heart of the Lord, and hence His Ineffable Name.

"And Moses said to Elohîm, 
Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and shall say to them,
the Elohîm of your fathers hath sent me to You ; 
and they shall say to me, What is His Name ? what shall I say to them ?
And Elohîm said to Moses : "AHYH" (I AM AND WILL BECOME) (...)
And Elohîm said moreover to Moses, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel,
YHVH the Elohîm of your fathers, the Elohîm of Abraham, the Elohîm of Isaac, and the Elohîm of Jacob, hath sent me to You (...)"
Exodus, 3:13-15, my bold.

The Names revealed to Moses were "YHVH" and "AHYH". "YHVH" implies the transcendent "Ain Soph (Aur)", the ineffable essence of the Divine, described in terms of a reality beyond being & absence of being and veiled by negatives ("Deus absconditus"). 

"The Tree of Life. Line of Light and the Contraction. Bear in mind that before the emanations were emanated and the creatures were created, the upper simple light had filled entire existence and there was no empty space whatsoever. Namely no empty atmosphere, hollow, or pit, for everything was filled with that simple, boundless light, and there was no such part as head, and no such part as tail ; that is, there was neither beginning nor end, for everything was simple or smoothly balanced, evenly and equally in one likeness or affinity, and that is called the endless light."
Luria, I. : The Ten Luminous Emanations, in : Ashlag, Y.L. : Kabbalah, volume 1, Research Centre of Kabbalah Press - Jeruzalem, 1969, pp.55 & 59.

"AHYH" or the created order is ruled by "YHVH" ({0}) as the monarch (1) of a Creative Divine hierarchy (a supreme being and its order).

"YHVH" being ineffable, is pronounced as "Adonai", "Lord" (written : YHAdonaiVH). "ALHYM" (or "Elohîms), a masculine plural ("Eloah" is the singular form) of a feminine noun, indicating neutral plurality & receptivity to the creative impulse, is the "Divine Presence" within the created order (cf. the "Shekinah" of Qabalah and "Sophia" in Gnosticism). 

"Elohîm" is creational and related to the majestic revelatoric plurality of the singular hidden "YHVH". It expresses the totality of Divine attributes (or exterior) and underlines the variety with which the Divine manifests in creation (Lord-in-Nature). The "Elohîm" are not personalities for no "Eloah" (singular) can constitute Divine existence without reference to "YHVH", the uncreated silence. There are no isolated, "secundary" deities, only YHVH ALHYM.

"YHAdonaiVH est l'Être unique, la matrice de toute vie, Celui qui a été, qui est et qui sera. Les Elohîms en expriment les puissances créatrices infinies. (...) N'oublions pas que si YHAdonaiVH est Unique, Elohîms est pluriel. Les prophètes n'ont jamais aspiré à voir surgir un univers monolithique : l'Unité qu'ils annoncent n'est pas faite d'uniformité, mais, nous y reviendrons, d'une universelle et vivante diversité, dans l'unité de l'Être qui la fonde, YHVH. Mieux que monothéistes, ils sont théomonistes."
Chouraqui, A. : Moise, du Rocher - Paris, 1995, p.181-182, my italics.

The Divine is conceived as onefold but bi-polar. Unity is called "YHVH", variety or actual existence is called "Elohîm". The Divine Name "YHadonaiVY" indicating a unity whereas the Name is a duality. So bi-polarity is expressed in the Name itself.

YHVH is singular, ineffable, uncreated & infinite
the ALHYM are plural, knowable, created & eternal
AHYH is one, godhead, first cause & alternation-point

The "Elohîm" are Divine creative energies, plural & rooted in the infinite but created (although creating). The Name "YHVH Elohîm" indicates both these singular & plural aspects of the Divine and so stands for the totality of all that is Divine. The Name "YHVH" can not be vocalized. It indicates a "negative", pre-creationa, Divine Absolute Infinity.

What do we learn by confronting late New Kingdom theology with this "Hebrew" approach, for both were probably known to Moses the Egyptian, who lives in the memory of Israel as their liberator and initiator ? The first major theological words spoken by Elohîm to Moses were : 

"I am YHVY thy Elohîm, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the Earth beneath, or that is in the water under the Earth : Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them : for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God ..." 
Exodus, 20,2-4. 

The first thing decreed is precisely what had been refused in the New Kingdom, as Amarna evidences, namely radical monotheism : no other deities next to the Great One. The revelation of Moses (the Torah) takes the next step, for the exclusive worship of natural phenomena (as the Aten) is also rejected. This YHVH can not be represented. This suggests the Elohîm make up the underlying Divine order of the created order, out of which the various expressions and modes of being emanate (top-down). By reaching out (bottom-up) the pure servant exist in the point of beauty in the heart (Tiphareth), maintaining the proper balance between the Mercy (Gedulah) & the Severity (Geburah) of the Divine Elohîm.

Some drastic changes in the concept of pre-creation should also be noticed. In Ancient Egyptian theology (a period spanning 15 centuries, from the IIIth to the XXth Dynasty), pre-creation had always been structured as an Ennead headed by the Great One (as Atum-Re, Thoth, Ptah or Amun). The Great One created himself (causa sui).

For Moses and the mystical tradition after him, pre-creation exclusively belonged to YHVH. Although qabalists like Luria saw pre-creation as "Ain Sof Aur" or "endless light", it was reckoned to be a "negative existence" which always remained hidden. Before creation, only YHVH existed. What is said about the "hidden" pole of Ramesside bi-polarity, compares with this ineffable essence called "YHVH". Hence Amun, the Aten, Adonai and Allah have been compared.

Mosaic revelation brings to the fore the Great God Alone. YHVH is decontextualized. The Great One of Ancient Egypt remained rooted in mythical, pre-rational & proto-rational contextualizations. But the formula "the One who becomes millions" and "YHVH Elohîm" do have in common the One encompassing pre-creation, creation and post-creation (cf. Atum-Re, Ptah & Amun-Re).

Ancient Egyptian proto-rationality was pictoral and the figurations were icons, "loci" were the Divine could abide in images. The Elohîm were also plural, but the 10 "Sephiroth" of the Tree of Life (the fundamental scheme of Qabalah) represented a well-formed "unum omnia", a unified whole (like the 10 times "Elohîm said" occurs in the first chapter of Genesis or the 10 descriptive orders on the tables of the law in Exodus). 

the Tree of Life

That this model is a linearization of the Egyptian temple (court, hypostyle hall, sanctuary, holy of holies) may be appreciated when the drawing is completed (in most representations the lower Abyss is not shown). Moreover, the superstructures of its mystical experience had given Israel a geometrical hierarchy (impossible without decontextualizations - cf. Greek "theoria"), for these 10 Numerations are part of the architecture of their beautiful interactions (22 in number, i.e. as many as there are letters in the Hebrew alephbet). This "ladder of light" is nothing less than the existence of YHVH, for the Elohîm are nothing but the Self-manifestation of the essence of being only for YHVH to experience. The Elohîm, translated as "gods and goddesses", does not represent a pantheon, but the totality of Divine emanations. These lights are "uncreated".

So for Moses and his Abrahamic descendants, Divine plurality is maintained but the deities themselves are eliminated. There are no divinities next to YHVH Elohîm. No other being than The God is to be worshipped. Divine unity is ineffable, hidden and for ever above the world (transcendence), whereas Divine existence is guaranteed by the ten Elohîm who will, create, shape & manifest Divine energies animating all of actual existence (immanence). These Elohîm are not independent or quasi-independent deities with their own contextual (constellational) limitations. They are the totality of Divine existence, but each time viewed from one out of nine other possible modes of Divine Self-manifestation. In each mode all other modes are present.

Epilogue

For two major reasons, the reforms of Akhenaten did not work : on the one hand, monotheism (One God Alone before and against all other Deities) does not mix with the polytheism, monolatry and henotheism of the Egyptian mentality, and, on the other hand, the return to a monarchic monotheism (but this time devoid of filial lineage) was an anachronism. Although some must have thought the Sun god in person was at work in Akhetaten, the reforms (by radicalizing the Solar Theology) went too far, for how to believe Osiris had become irrelevant and to pray to Akhenaten and Nefertiti was sufficient ?

The Amarna episode elucidates one of the dangerous characteristics of monotheism, namely the "scape-goat"-effect, dogmatism and fanaticism. In the case of Akhenaten, Amun and Osiris were the scape-goats, his exclusive Aten worship with adjacent Pharaonic exclusivity the dogma, and the more or less systematic destruction and termination of cults & festivals the effects of fanaticism and a lack of tolerance towards existing traditions. These themes are recurrent in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, each claiming an exclusive relationship with God.

Perhaps the wisdom of Egypt is precisely this Oriental refusal to reduce and simplify creation ?

Notes

For a general bibliography on Amarna see : 
Martin, G.T. : A Bibliography of the Amarna Period in Its Aftermath, London, 1991.

For the hieroglyphic text (751KB) of the Great Hymn to the Aten the copy of Davies was used :
Davies, N. de G. : The Rock Tombs of El Amarna, part VI, The Egypt Exploration Fund - London, 1908.

My translation of the Great Hymn to the Aten was especially inspired by :
Lichtheim, M. : Ancient Egyptian Literature, University of California Press - California, 1976, vol.II, pp.96-100.

Also :

Breasted, J.H. : Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, Pennsylvania Press - Pennsylvania, 1972, pp.324-328.
Le Grand Hymne à Aton en 4 langues : Hiéroglyphes, Français, Anglais, Arabe, Samir - Paris, 1991.
N.de G.Davies : Rock Tombs of El Amarna, Archaeological Survey of Egypt - London, 1908.
Assmann, J. : Moses the Egyptian, Harvard University Press - London, 1997, pp.172-177.
Hornung, E. : Akhenaten and the Religion of Light, Cornell University Press - Ithaca, 1999, pp.79-83.

(1) Assmann, J. : The Seach for God in Ancient Egypt, Cornell University Press - Ithaca, 2001, p.8.
(2) Assmann, J. : Ibidem, p.153.
(3) Assmann, J. : Ibidem, p.224.
(4) Assmann, J. : Ibidem, p.224. 
(5) Staal, F. : Exploring Mysticism, Penguin - New York, 1975. For a more elaborated bibliography on mysticism consult my Dungen, van den, W. : Kennis en Minne-Mystiek, 1994, preludium, note 6.
(6) Assmann, J. : Op.cit., p.156.
(7) Assmann, J. : Ibidem, p.18-19.
(8) Lichtheim, M. : Ancient Egyptian Literature, California University Press - California, volume 1, 1975, p.17.
(9) Lichtheim, M. : Ibidem, pp.8-9.
(10) Hornung, E. : Akhenaten and the Religion of Light, Cornell University Press - New York, 1999, p.5.
(11) Walle, van de, B. discusses the copies by Sicard in Revue d'Égyptologie, 1976, n°28, pp.12-24.
(12) Wilkinson, J.G. : Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, London, 1837.
(13) Champollion, F. : Lettres écrites d'Égypte et de Nubie en 1828 et 1829, Paris, 1833.
(14) Lepsius, K.R. : "Ueber den ersten ägyptischen Götterkreis und seine geschichtlich-mythologische Entstehung", in : Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Jahrgang 1851, pp.157-214, quoted text translated by Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.3.
(15) Weigall, A. : The Life and Times of Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt, Edinburgh, 1910.
(16) A more recent publication is : Moran, W.L. : The Amarna Letters, Johns Hopkins University Press - Baltimore, 1992.
(17) Bouriant, U. : "Deux Jours de fouilles à Tell al-Amarna", in : Mémoires publiés par les membres de la Mission archéologique française au Caire, Paris, 1884.
Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.10.
(18) Breasted, J.H. : De Hymnis in Solem sub Rege Amenophide IV conceptis ("On the Hymns to the Sun composed under Amenophis IV"), Berlin University - dissertation, 1895. 
(19) Störig, H.J. : Kleine Weltgeschichte der Philosophie, Kohlhammer - Stuttgart, volume1, 1959. 
(20) Assman, J. : Op.cit., pp.10-13.
(21) Lichtheim, M. : Op.cit., 3 volumes, 1975.
Breasted, J.H. : Ancient Records of Egypt, University of Illinois Press - Illinois, 2001 (4 volumes).
Parkinson, R.B. : The Tale of Sinuhe and other Ancient Egyptien Poems, Oxford University Press - Oxford, 1997.
Lalouette, Cl. : Textes Sacrés et Textes Profanes de l'Ancienne Égypte, Gallimard - Paris, 1984.
Roccati, A. : La Littérature Historique sous l'Ancient Empire Égyptien, Du Cerf - Paris, 1982.
Barucq, A. & Daumas, F. : Hymnes et Prières de l'Égypte Ancienne, Du Cerf - Paris, 1980.
Pound, E. & Stock, N. : Love Poems of Ancient Egypt, New Directions - New York, 1962.
(22) Tempels, P. : Bantu Philosophy, Présence Africaine - Paris, 1959.
Apostel, L. : African Philosophy : Myth or Reality ?, Scientia - Gent, 1981.
Eze, E.Ch. (edit) : African Philosophy, Blackwell - Malden, 1998.
(23) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.22 : on the Third Pylon of the Montu temple at Karnak.
(24) Hornung, E. & Staehelin, E. : "Studien zum Sedfest", in : Aegyptiaca Helvetica I, Geneva, 1974.
Aldred, C. : "The Second Jubelee of Amenophis II", in : Zeitschrift fur Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, n°94, 1967, pp.1-6.
Assmann, J. : "Das ägyptische Prozessionsfest.", in : Assmann, J. & Sundermeier, T. (editors) : Das Fest und das Heilige : Religiöse Kontrapunte zur Alltagswelt, SVR 1- Gütersloh, 1991, pp.105-122.
(25) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.26.
Kozloff, A.P. & Bryan, B.M. : Egypt's Dazzling Sun : Amenhotep III and His World, Cleveland, 1992.
Kàkosy, L. : "The weltanschauliche Krise des Neuen Reiches.", in : Zeitschrift fur ägyptologische Sprache und ALtertumskunde, n°100, 1973, pp.35-41.
(26) Budge, E.A.W. : The Mummy, Dover - New York, 1989, p.33.
(27) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., pp.32-33.
Beckerath, J. : "Handbuch der ägyptischen Köningsnamen", in : Münchner ägyptologische Studien, n°20, 1984.
(28) Hornung, E. : The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, Cornell University Press - Ithaca, 1999, p.27.
(29) Assmann, J. : Op.cit., pp.201-208.
(30) Lichtheim, M. : Op.cit., vol.II, p.87.
(31) Assmann, J. : Op.cit., p.201.
(32) Assmann, J. : Ibidem, p.213.
(33) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.30.
Murane, W.J. : "On the Accession date of Akhenaten.", in : Studies in Honor of George R.Hughes, The Oriental Institute - Chicago, 1977, pp.163-167.
Murane, W.J. : "Ancient Egyptian Coregencies.", in : Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, Chicago, n°40, 1977, pp.123-169. 
Hornung, E. : Untersuchungen zur Chronologie und Geschichte ders Neuen Reiches, Wiesbaden, 1964, pp.71-78.
(34) Hart, G. : A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods & Goddesses, Routledge & Kegan - London, 1986, pp.41-42.
(35) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.50.
(36) Hornung, E. : Ibidem, p.76.
(37) Hornung, E. : Ibidem, p.39.
(38) Champollion, F. : Notices descriptives, vol.2, p.320, mentioned by Hornung, E. : Ibidem, p.130. For the other others : Hornung, E. : Ibidem, pp.43-44.
(39) Budge, E.A.W. : The Gods of the Egyptian, Dover - New York, 1969, vol.1, pp.63-74.
Hornung, E. : Les Dieux de L'Egypte : le Un et le Multiple, du Rocher - Paris, 1986, pp.24-27.
Aldred, C. : Akhenaten, King of Egypt, Thames and Hudson - London, 1988, p.273.
(40) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.56.
Hornung, E. : The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, Cornell University Press - Ithaca, 1999, pp.55-77.
(41) Moran, W.L. : The Amarna Letters, Johns Hopkins University Press - Baltimore, 1992. 
(42) Assmann, J. : Op.cit., p.216.
(43) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., pp.125-126.
(44) Assmann, J. : Op.cit., p.222.
(45) Hornung, E. : Op.cit., p.125.
(46) Hornung, E. : Les Dieux ..., p.235.
(47) Assmann, J. : Op.cit., p.241.
(48) Assmann, J. : Moses..., pp.263-264.
(49) Papyrus Berlin 3030, 8-9, Papyrus Louvre 3336, 1, 1-16, Papyrus Brussels by Speelers, L. in :  Receuil des Travaux, n°39, 1917, 28ff.
Assmann, J. : Op.cit., p.241.
(50) Assmann, J. : Moses ..., p.21.