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King Akhenaton and Queen Nefertiti
King Akhenaton (left) with his wife, Queen Nefertiti, and three of their daughters under the rays of the sun god Aton, altar relief, mid-14th century bce; in the State Museums at Berlin
sun worship
religion
Also known as: solar deity, sun god, sun goddess
sun worship, veneration of the sun or a representation of the sun as a deity, as in Atonism in Egypt in the 14th century bce. Although sun worship has been used frequently as a term for “pagan” religion, it is, in fact, relatively rare. Though almost every culture uses solar motifs, only a relatively few cultures (Egyptian, Indo-European, and Meso-American) developed solar religions. All of these groups had in common a well-developed urban civilization with a strong ideology of sacred kingship. In all of them the imagery of the sun as the ruler of both the upper and the lower ...(100 of 726 words)