THE GREAT ATEN

To honor his new god, Amenhotep IV constructed an enormous temple east of the Great Temple of Amun at Karnak during the third year of his reign.

The temple included pillared courts with striking colossal statues of the king and at least three sanctuaries, one of which was called the Hwt-benben ('mansion of the Benben'). This emphasized
the relationship between Aten and the sun cult of Heliopolis.

The Benben symbolized the primeval mound on which the sun god emerged from Nun to create the universe.

One section of the temple appears to have been the domain of Nefertiti, Amenhotep IV's principal
wife and in one scene, she is pictured together with two daughters, but excluding her husband, worshipping below the sun disk.

Artistically, this temple at Karnak was even decorated in a novel "expressionistic" style that broke
with previous tradition and would soon influence the representation of all figures.

Perhaps nowhere is this artistic style more evident then in the tomb Amenhotep IV's vizier, Ramose. Most of the tomb's decoration consists of fine low reliefs carved during the last years of Amenhotep III reign in a congenital Theban style, but on the rear wall of the pillared tomb is a mixture of traditional design and the startling developments in art made by Akhenaten.

This new artistic style was to usher in to Egypt considerable religious upheaval.