Exalting the Aten Alone
Akhenaten proclaimed: the sun disc Aten alone is the true god, its rays ending in little hands that bestow blessing on the pharaoh's family. He ordered the other temples closed, the priesthood dispersed, and the names of the gods (above all Amun) chiseled from the monuments, gathering the nation's faith, finances, and power under the Aten — that is, under the pharaoh himself. This was at once a theological revolution and a purge of power aimed at the kingdom-rich priesthood of Amun. The Great Hymn to the Aten he left behind praises the one god who creates and cares for all things, and its beauty is often read alongside Psalm 104.
The Erased Heretic
After Akhenaten's death, the reform collapsed swiftly. His young successor, originally named Tutankhaten ("living image of the Aten"), was renamed Tutankhamun ("living image of Amun"), returned to Thebes, reopened the temples, and restored the gods. Later pharaohs deleted this whole stretch — Akhenaten and Tutankhamun — from the official king lists, called him "the enemy of Amarna," and smashed his capital and statues. An experiment in monotheism a thousand years ahead of its time was cut out by its own civilization like a diseased growth — until, in the nineteenth century, archaeologists dug this "heretic pharaoh" back out of the ruins of Amarna.