1350 BC
The day Akhenaten banishes the gods of Egypt
From one day to the next, hundreds of gods are exiled. Around 1,350 years before the birth of Christ, the Pharaoh Akhenaten and his queen, Nefertiti, raise Aton to the status of the only god of Egypt. The temples of the ancient gods are closed and the priests are all removed from power. Only faith in Aton is permitted, as worship of any other gods is expressly prohibited. “This probably makes Akhenaten the first person to try to institute a far-reaching and strict monotheism,” says Egyptologist Erik Hornung. However, after Akhenaten’s death the prior religious conditions are restored. But the idea— once planted in the memory of mankind— lives on.