Great Hymn to the Aten- Egyptian ArtifactArtifact"The Great Hymn"
Also known as: Hymn to the Aten, Great Aten Hymn, and Long Hymn to the Aten
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Description
'When you set on the western horizon, the earth is in darkness like death' — inscribed in a courtier's tomb at Amarna, the Great Hymn to the Aten is the fullest expression of Akhenaten's revolutionary monotheism, celebrating the sun disk as sole creator of all peoples and lands.
Mythology & Lore
The Tomb of Ay
The hymn is inscribed in thirteen columns on the west wall of the tomb of Ay at Akhetaten, modern Tell el-Amarna. Ay held the title "God's Father" under Akhenaten and later became pharaoh after Tutankhamun's death. That the fullest statement of Akhenaten's religion survives in a courtier's tomb is an accident of destruction: Atenist temples were torn down, but Ay's tomb was left intact.
The Hymn
"When you set on the western horizon, the earth is in darkness like death." The hymn tracks the Aten's daily cycle. At dawn, all creation stirs: the chick calls from within its shell, fish leap in the river. At sunset, darkness returns. Lions emerge. Serpents bite. The world waits for the light to return.
No other god appears in the text. The Aten alone creates and sustains. He fashioned foreign nations with different languages and different skin, each reached by his rays. Even the Nile is his work.
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