Akhenaten and his family make an offering to Aten, the sun god.

Inscribed prominently at the entrance to the tomb of an important official in the new capital city of el-Amarna, this hymn celebrates the sun as creator and sustainer of the world and emphasizes the close connection between the god and his human counterparts, the king (Amenhotep IV) and queen (Nefertiti). The king initiated a religious and political revolution when he exclusively promoted the cult of the sun god, Aten, built a new capital, and changed his name to Akhenaten, which means “He who is effective for Aten.”

(From the Norton Anthology of World Literature, 29)

The first two stanzas of “The Great Hymn to the Aten” set its tone because the sun’s presence evinces its greatness, but also its absence is felt just as readily. The fear that arises when darkness abounds is a primeval fear, one that civilizations, even as early as this Egyptian era, had encountered. It is interesting to think about the opposites the hymn puts forth, such as light and darkness, good and bad, hot and cold, living and dead. Seeing them laid out in this hymn reminds us of our primordial nature. It brings up the question of morality, or our ethical nature, since we can see that something greater lives within us, leading us toward judgment. Nature, in this case the sun, is the root of all goodness, and therefore its behavior dictates what it is to be good.

I assume that in 1350 BCE people did not know the sun was a ball of fire that would scorch us if it came too close to the earth, and we would go extinct if it disappeared all together. Akhenaten’s worshipping the sun, then, as the “Sole God beside whom there is none” (line 65) is intuitive in ways. To go from darkness to light every morning is still somewhat of a miracle today. When we have a power outage and are forced to live in darkness, we are given the opportunity to know what early civilizations must have experienced. Is the return of light after complete darkness not a miracle? If we lived without light for half of the time, could you imagine worshipping the sun too? Also, there is much truth to the acknowledgment that the sun makes everything grow and brings it to life, so it is no wonder they believed Aten had created the earth as well: “You made the earth as you wished, you alone, / [made] All peoples, herds, and flocks” (lines 66-7).