Dictionary Of God And Godedesses

36 ATENthe left half being fishy and the right half ofhuman form. In the tradition of the HerveyIslands, he is the firstborn son of the primordialmother VARI-MA-TE-TAKERE. After a short existencelow down in the world coconut livingimmediately above his mother, he moved to theopening of the upper world. He is largely comparableto TANE, the god of light. Also AVATEA,Vatea, Wakea.ATEN (the sun disc)ORIGIN Egyptian. Creator sun god.KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP circa 2000 BC untillate in Egyptian history, but of little influenceafter 1362 BC.SYNONYMS Aton.CENTER(S) OF CULT chiefly at Thebes but also atHeliopolis, Memphis, el-Amarna and othersanctuaries in the Nile valley.ART REFERENCES monument at Giza, wall paintingsat Karnak and el-Amarna.LITERARY SOURCES various papyri, inscriptionsand coffin texts.Aten, the sun as a disc, was revered as a numen inhis own right, distinct from Atum or Re, fromcirca 2000 BC and possibly earlier. His influencehad been growing under several pharaohs includingAmenhotep II, Tuthmosis IV and AmenhotepIII, who initiated a cult of Aten at Heliopolis.Aten rose to ultimate supremacy for a brief periodduring the reign of Amenhotep IV who renamedhimself Akhenaten in honor of the god. DuringAkhenaten’s reign from 1379 BC Aten became thesupreme god of Egypt, eclipsing all others.The iconography of Aten is very distinctive. Itbegan as a winged sun disc with outstretchedarms, but this was refined into a sun disc embellishedwith the uraeus (see WADJET) and subtendedby thin arms, like the rays of the sun, eachof which ends in a human hand. Where the latterpoint toward a royal personage they hold the ankhsymbol of life. The god is never drawn in humanor animal form.Akhenaten first built a sanctuary to Aten adjacentto that of AMUN in the Karnak complex atThebes. The main cult center was to the north ofThebes on the east bank of the Nile at el-Amarna,where a huge sanctuary was constructed. It wasopen to the sky (and the rays of Aten) and themain ceremonials took place at dawn. It acted asa contentious rival to the cult of Amun-Re at Karnak,which Akhenaten suppressed. All the templesto Aten were later destroyed, as was most of hisiconography. Akhenaten ruled from el-Amarnafor the remainder of his reign. One of his queens,Nefertiti, was also a staunch Aten worshiper.The elevation of Aten was influenced by politics(the strength of the Amun-Re priesthood wasbecoming excessive), and it is notable that Akhenatenalone had access to, or knowledge of, the god.Aten worship was also undeniably the result of agrowing interest in the concept of a single creatorgod and was the first arguable demonstration ofmonotheism. Very little detail of the cult survives.AteteFertility goddess. Kafa [Ethiopia, northeasternAfrica]. She was assimilated into the Christiancult of the Virgin Mary, but is probably the subjectof an ancient fertility rite performed bywomen who collect various sacred plants andthrow them into the river. The festival is knownas Astar yo Mariam (Epiphany of Mary).ATHENAORIGIN Greek. Goddess of war and patrondefender of many Greek cities.KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP circa 800 BC andearlier until Christianization (circa AD 400) andlater.