The worship of Aton appears as early as the reign of Thutmose IV (_ca._
1414-1406 B.C.), who issued a commemorative scarab stating that the
Pharaoh fought "with the Aton before him," and that he campaigned
abroad, "to make the foreigners to be like the (Egyptian) people, in
order to serve the Aton forever."[8]
Aton occupied an important place in the Egyptian pantheon during the
reign of Akhenaton's father, Amenhotep III. A stele of the king's
architects, Hori and Suti, describes the sun god as the deity who holds
sway over all peoples and lands. A hymn speaks of Amon as "Aton of the
day, creator of mortals and maker of life." The royal barge of Amenhotep
III and his wife Tiy bore the name, "Aton gleams." Other gods were
worshiped, and Amon was still in his place of honor, but Aton had come
to the fore--perhaps in a context of rivalry between the priests of
Heliopolis and Thebes--and the stage was set for the impending battle.
In the earliest period of Akhenaton's reign, Aton was the preferred god,
but Amon was still granted homage. There was actually little that was
original in the religious life of those earliest years, although there
was much that might give concern to the Amon priests. Although there had
been an earlier Aton temple in Thebes, it was Akhenaton who slowly moved
from a position in which Aton was the favored god to one in which Aton
was the only god tolerated. While there had been tendencies toward
monotheism before, and Aton worship was not new, it was Akhenaton who
finally made the break with the Amon priests at Thebes. With inexorable
logic he changed his name from Amenhotep to Akhenaton, closed the Amon
temples, and erased the name of Amon from monuments and inscriptions.
While Amon was the particular object of his disfavor, Akhenaton declared
war on all the "thousand gods of Egypt," and sought to remove the very
word "gods" from the monuments.