Now as to the attributes of Aten. As already stated he was a somewhat colourless deity, and is perhaps better to be distinguished by the attributes which are not ascribed to him than by those which are, though in time some of the attributes of Ra, Horus, and other forms of the sun-god were given to him. From his original subordinate position as the abode of Ra--the material disk wherein the sun-god had his dwelling ('Ra in his Aten')--Aten came in time to signify both the god and the actual solar disk. Attempts made to identify him with the Semitic Adonai, the Greek Adonis, have met with no success. Evidence of Aten's early position in the pantheon is to be found in the _Book of the Dead_, where Ra is addressed thus: "O thou beautiful being, thou dost renew thyself and make thyself young again under the form of Aten." "Thou turnest thy face toward the underworld, and thou makest the earth to shine like fine copper. The dead rise up to see thee, they breathe the air and they look upon thy face when Aten shineth in the horizon." A Hymn to Aten During the period when his cult was supreme in Egypt Aten was regarded by his worshippers as the creator, self-existent and everlasting, fructifier and nourisher of the earth and all it contains, measurer of the lives of men. Aten was invested with a cartouche, wherein he is styled 'Lord of heaven,' 'Lord of earth,' 'He who liveth for ever,' 'He who illumineth the earth,' 'He who reigneth in truth'. A singularly beautiful and poetic version of a hymn to Aten, in which he is exalted as the giver of life and fruitfulness to all things, has been found in the tomb of Aï, a high official under Amen-hetep, or Akh-en-Aten. It begins thus: Beauteous is thy resplendent appearing on the horizon of heaven, O Aten, who livest and art the beginning of life! He it was who made the Nile in the Duat and conducted it to men, causing its waters to rise; he, also, who sent the rain to those lands which were beyond the reach of the Nile's beneficent flood. Thou makest the Nile in the underworld, thou conductest it hither at thy pleasure, That it may give life to men whom thou hast made for thyself, Lord of All! Thou givest the Nile in heaven that it descendeth to them. It causeth its waters to rise upon the rocks like the sea; it watereth their fields in their districts. So are thy methods accomplished, O Lord of Eternity! thou who art thyself the celestial Nile: Thou art the king of the inhabitants of the lands, And of the cattle going upon their feet in every land, which go upon feet. The Nile cometh out of the underworld to Egypt.