| Aten Key | |
| Objects | |
| |
| Users | Anubis |
| Functions | Activation Key of a Maukhet cloaking device |
| Status | In Anubis' posession |
| Creator | Egyptian Pantheon |
| Owner | Azophel |
The Aten Key, more commonly known by the names of its two halves, the Eye of Ra and the Eye of Horus, is an ancient Egyptian amulet created during the Protodynastic Period of Ancient Egypt.
History
In the wake of the betrayal of their contemporary Amun, the Egyptian deities, in actuality ancient SuperHumans, were faced with a difficult decision. If news that Amun had gone mad were to spread, the reverence that the common people held for their society would be lost - SuperHumans would have become known as monsters, rather than deities. In an attempt at self-preservation, it was decided that they would cover up the truth of their lengthy battle with Amun, claiming that a nameless evil had attacked and destroyed their city of Niut-Netsheru. That Amun had not survived the attack spoke of the power of this evil, and the fallen city was struck from record, lest familiarity with its site reawaken the powers that had destroyed it.
In order to prevent the city from ever being rediscovered, the gods built a temple in Thinis, then the capital of Upper Egypt, and activated a Maukhet cloaking/shielding device around Niut-Netsheru, causing the city to vanish. The key to the shield, an amulet in the shape of a stylized sun, was split in two. One half was given to Sekhmet, who in turn passed it to the temple of Ra in Iulu. The other half was given to Osiris; it was inherited by his son Horus, who in turn passed it to his son Narmer, the first Pharaoh of a united Egypt. The first piece was lost when Iulu, known better by its Greek name Heliopolis, declined around the 1st century BC; the second was lost much earlier, during the turmoil surrounding the First Intermediate Period (ca. 2181–2055 BC). Neither half of the Aten Key would be seen again until the 20th century.
The two halves of the Aten Key amulet, the Eye of Ra and the Eye of Horus.
The Eye of Ra half of the amulet was found by American Egyptologists while excavating a temple outside of Cairo, and was taken back to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Its inscription, "So has the Hall of Radiance been sealed by the Lord of the Rising Sun", was taken to refer to the closure of the temple of Ra in Heliopolis, when Alexandria eclipsed it as a center of learning.
The Eye of Horus half was discovered by Japanese Egyptologists in Saqqara, in a tomb believed to have belonged to a king of the First Intermediate Period, and was taken back to the Ancient Orient Museum in Tokyo. Its inscription, "the Nameless One shall lie forever in the shadow of death's domain," was believed to be a curse upon the occupant of the tomb, which was unmarked.
The historian Benjamin Jackson, while not the first to speculate that the two halves of the Aten Key were part of the same amulet, was the first to combine the inscriptions and infer that the Hall of Radiance might reference a lost SuperHuman city, and that the Nameless One could be the first recorded instance of a SuperVillain. His theories were widely discarded as pseudo-scientific nonsense.
Believing that the amulet was the key to discovering an ancient weapon, the Coalition of Corruption stole both halves of the Aten Key and took them to the newly discovered ruins of the city Thinis. By combining both halves of the key and placing it into an altar-like device, they managed to disable the cloaking shield around the city of Niut-Netsheru. When they proceeded into the city, however, they were set upon by the League of Salvation. During the battle, the League confiscated the key, and in the aftermath returned it to Anubis, an ancient SuperHuman who continued to reside in the abandoned city.