Solar Empire--Heavens Above VI

　　"We don't know why Stonehenge was built. It was cle arly a site that had a very intense ceremonial purpose to it. We know that it was aligned on the mid-winter, m id-summer solstice directions. They wouldn't go to all that bother to build something that was just a calendar . Clearly, the place had some sort of religious signifi cance as well. People in prehistoric times didn't think of the cosmos in the way we do, but they still tried to understand the cosmos in their ways. And, they tried to reflect what they perceived as the structure of the cos mos in where they put things on the ground, how they de signed things, and ways they walked through the ground. It is quite probable that Stonehenge itself was some so rt of model of the cosmos."

　　In the Americas, an ancient people also aligned bui ldings to the god of the summer solstice. At Casa Grand e, in what is now Arizona, the Hohokam people built the grandest house in the village so that on the longest da y of the year, the god of mid-summer shines through two holes aligned in the mud walls. From Stonehenge to Anci ent Egypt, worship of a sun god continued to bear testa ment to the power of the heavens on Earth. One pharaoh, Akhenaten, was engaged in a bitter struggle with the pr iesthood by claiming a direct alliance with Egypt's all -powerful sun god.

　　"Egypt was a constant tension between the bureaucra cy of the priesthood and the pharaoh, who sometimes occ upied the pinnacle or the top of the pyramid of power. And, Akhenaten really was a threat to the established p riesthood and was trying to put himself as an advocate and as an alliance with the sun."

　　Fourteen hundred years before the birth of Christ, Akhenaten proclaimed the sun god all-powerful and banne d the worship of any other. In Ancient Egypt, the sun w as called the Aten. The pharaoh's name meant loosely, F riend of the Sun. Akhenaten closed any temple not in tr ibute to the Aten and marshaled gangs to literally wipe the names of all other gods from all public buildings. All mankind was to worship the sun, the Aten, the sole and supreme deity.