King Akhenaton and His Religion

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Pharaoh Akhenaton (akenaten) established a new religion the cult of Aton, or Aten, the sun god or solar disk, sometimes referred to as solar monotheism which he believed to be a universal, omnipresent spirit and the sole creator of the universe, that was in the fifth year of his reign, the king changed his name from the royal designation Amenhotep IV "Amon Is Content" to Akhenaton "Beneficial to Aton" or Aton is satisfied. Nefertiti’s name was expanded to Neferneferuaten “Beautiful Is the Beauty of Aton”-Nefertiti. That same year king Akhenaton moved his capital to a new site some 200 miles (300 km) north of Thebes, was "Tell el Aamrna" was a virgin site on the east bank of the river Nile .

This capital named Akhetaton means "Horizon of the Aton". This city devoted to the celebration of Aton, and he ordered the obliteration of all traces of the polytheistic religion of his ancestors. He also fought bitterly against the powerful priests who attempted to maintain the worship of the state god Amon, or Amen. This religious revolution had a profound effect on Egyptian artists, who turned from the ritualistic forms to which they had been confined to a much more realistic representation of nature as evidence of the all-embracing power of the sun, Aton. A new religious literature also arose