in ancient Egyptian religion, a sun god, depicted as the solar disk emitting rays terminating in human hands, whose worship briefly was the state religion. The pharaoh Akhenaton (reigned 1353–36 BCE) returned to supremacy of the sun god, with the startling innovation that the Aton was to be the only god (see Re). To remove himself from the preeminent cult of Amon-Re at Thebes, Akhenaton built the city Akhetaton (now Tell el-Amarna (Amarna, Tell el-)) as the centre for the Aton's worship.

Men had slept like the dead; now they lift their arms in praise, birds fly, fish leap, plants bloom, and work begins. Aton creates the son in the mother's womb, the seed in men, and has generated all life. He has distinguished the races, their natures, tongues, and skins, and fulfills the needs of all. Aton made the Nile in Egypt and rain, like a heavenly Nile, in foreign countries. He has a million forms according to the time of day and from where he is seen; yet he is always the same.

Akhenaton devoted himself to the worship of the Aton, erasing all images of Amon and all writings of his name and sometimes even writings containing the word gods. But the new religion was rejected by the Egyptian elite after Akhenaton's death, and the general populace had probably never adopted it in the first place. After Akhenaton's death, the old gods were reestablished and the new city abandoned. Aton worship was not fully monotheistic (because the pharaoh himself was considered a god), nor was it a direct precursor of monotheistic religions such as Judaism.