entities: ENT_EGY_ATEN

The core table — every entity in the database, spanning gods, angels, demons, aeons, prophets, saints, heroes, spirits, monsters, personified abstractions, cosmological realms, and ritual categories. Use category to filter by functional type (146 values: Underworld Deity, Hero, Adversarial Being, Revealer Figure, etc.). Use tradition to filter by tradition. The short_note column contains a scholarly description with source citations.

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entity_id canonical_name greek_name tradition entity_type category primary_domains tags cult_scope primary_period evidence_confidence review_status inclusion_basis earth_association_score chthonic_flag serpent_flag short_note entity_class
ENT_EGY_ATEN Aten   Egyptian Solar deity Solar Deity sun; light; creation; sustenance; monotheism       A           The solar disk, worshipped as the sole deity during the Amarna Period under Pharaoh Akhenaten (c. 1353-1336 BCE). Aten is the visible disk of the sun and the light emanating from it, conceptualised as the direct creative and sustaining force of all life; the Great Hymn to the Aten (c. 1347 BCE) articulates an almost monotheistic theology in which Aten creates the world daily at dawn and maintains all creatures by its warmth and light. Unlike earlier solar deities (Ra, Khepri, Harakhty), Aten was not portrayed in human or animal form but as the disk with rays ending in hands that extend the ankh (life) to the royal family only. Aten had been a minor solar aspect since at least the Middle Kingdom (attested in the "Story of Sinuhe," c. 1900 BCE) before Akhenaten elevated it to sole deity status. Wilkinson (2003) pp. 236-240; Murnane (1995) passim. deity

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