Editing Aten (section)

== Iconography ==
Aten was considered to have been everywhere and intangible as Aten was the sunlight and energy in the world. Therefore, he did not have physical representations that other traditional ancient Egyptian gods had, instead represented via the sun disc and reaching rays of light tipped with human-like hands.<ref name=":2" /> The explanation as to why the Aten could not be fully represented was that the Aten was beyond creation. Thus the inscriptions of scenes of gods carved in stone previously depicted animals and human forms instead showed the Aten as an orb above with life-giving rays stretching toward the royal figure. This power transcended human or animal form.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Groenewegen-Frankfort |first=H. A. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/15661054 |title=Arrest and movement: an essay on space and time in the representational art of the ancient Near East |date=1987 |publisher=Belknap Press |isbn=0-674-04656-0 |location=Cambridge, Mass. |pages=99 |oclc=15661054}}</ref>

Later, [[iconoclasm]] was enforced, and even sun disc depictions of Aten were prohibited in an edict issued by Akhenaten. In the edict, he stipulated that Aten's name was to be spelt phonetically.<ref name="Brewer 2007 105">{{Cite book |last=Brewer |first=Douglas J. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/64313016 |title=Egypt and the Egyptians |date=2007 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |author2=Emily Teeter |isbn=978-0-521-85150-3 |edition=2nd |location=Cambridge |page=105 |oclc=64313016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |first=Simson |last=Najovits |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1328617320 |title=Egypt, the Trunk of the Tree A Modern Survey of an Ancient Land |date=2007 |publisher=Algora Publishing |isbn=978-0-87586-201-9 |pages=132–136 |oclc=1328617320}}</ref>