Great Hymn to the Aten

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The Great Hymn to the Aten was found in the tomb of Ay, in the rock tombs at Akhetaten. It is attributed to Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) himself, and gives us a glimpse of the artistic outpouring of the Amarna period (14th century BC).

The hymn suggests that Akhenaten considered Aten (the disk of the sun) as the only god, and creator of the universe, particularly in the verses translated as:

How manifold it is, what thou hast made!

They are hidden from the face (of man).

O sole god, like whom there is no other!

Thou didst create the world according to thy desire,

Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts,

Whatever is on earth, going upon (its) feet,

And what is on high, flying with its wings.

The countries of Syria and Nubia, the land of Egypt,

Thou settest every man in his place,

Thou suppliest their necessities:

Everyone has his food, and his time of life is reckoned.

Their tongues are separate in speech,

And their natures as well;

Their skins are distinguished,

As thou distinguishest the foreign peoples.

Thou makest a Nile in the underworld,

Thou bringest forth as thou desirest

To maintain the people (of Egypt)

According as thou madest them for thyself,

The lord of all of them, wearying (himself) with them,

The lord of every land, rising for them,

The Aton of the day, great of majesty.

The hymn portrays the sun as the giver of all life, plunging the land into darkness and danger during the night, to reawaken to life, work and praise with the dawn. There is great emphasis on the diversity and holiness of all living things, who praise the Aten with their every action.

Akhenaten's religious reforms (later regarded heretical and reverted by his successor Tutankhamun) is the earliest known example of monotheistic thought.

The Hymn has a remarkable similarity to Psalm 104, with which it is frequently compared.

The "Hymn to the Aten" was set to music by Philip Glass in his opera Akhnaten.

Pritchard, James B., ed., The Ancient Near East - Volume 1: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1958, pp. 227-230.