During the reign of Akhenaten The Aten was installed as the principle god of ancient Egypt, and the worship of many of the traditional gods of ancient Egypt was rejected. The Aten was not a new god but an obscure aspect of the sun god worshipped as early as the Old Kingdom. "Aten" was the traditional name for the sun-disk itself and so the name of the god is often translated as "the Aten" (for example, in the coffin texts of the Middle Kingdom) the word "Aten" represents the sun disc, and in the 'Story of Sinuhe' (also from the Middle Kingdom) Amenemhat I is described as soaring into the sky and uniting with Aten, his creator. During the New Kingdom, the Aten was considered to be an aspect of the composite deity Ra-Amun-Horus. (Ra represented the daytime sun, Amun represented the sun in the underworld and Horus represented the sunrise). Akhenaten proclaimed "the Aten" (the visible sun itself) to be the sole deity, taking sun worship a stage further. Because of the naturalistic qualities of some of the art works of the time, some have suggested that his religion was based on the scientific observation that the sun's energy is the ultimate source of all life.
-Aten was called the creator of man and the nurturing spirit of the world. In the Book of the Dead, Aten is called on by the deceased, "Hail, Aten, thou lord of beams of light, when thou shinest, all faces live."
-It is impossible to discuss Aten without mentioned his biggest promoter, the pharaoh Amenhotep IV, or Akhenaten. Early in his reign, Akhenaten worshipped both Amon (the chief god in Thebes at the time) and Aten. The first as part of his public duties, the latter in private. When he restored and enlarged the temple of Aten first built by his father Amenhotep III, relations between him and priests of Amon became strained. The priests were a major power in Egypt and if another god became supreme they would lose their own prestige. Eventually, relations became so strained that Akhenaten decided to built his own capital by the Nile, which he called, "Akhetaten", the Horizon of the Aten.
-At Akhetaten, Akhenaten formed a new state religion, focusing on the worship of the Aten. It stated that Aten was the supreme god and their were no others, save for Akhenaten himself. It has been said that Akhenaten formed the first monotheistic religion around Aten. However, this is not the case. Akhenaten himself was considered to be a creator god and like Aten was born again every day. Aten was only accessible to the people through Akhenaten because Akhenaten was both man and part of the cosmos.
-Akhenaten systematically began a campaign to erase all traces of the old gods, especially Amon. He erased the name of Amon from the temples and public works. He even went so far as to erase his own father's cartouche because the word "Amon" was featured in it. Even the word "gods" was unacceptable because it implied there were other deities besides Aten.
-It is clear that the Egyptian people never accepted their king's religion and view of the world. Even at his own capital, Akhetaten, amulets featuring Bes and Tauret have been found. Following Akhenaten's death, Atenism died rapidly. Mostly because the people never really believed in it and also because Akhenaten's successors did all they could to erase Akhenaten and Aten from the public eye. Eventually, Akhetaten became abandoned and the name "Akhenaten" conjured the dim memory of a "heretic king."
