Amenhotep IV he ruled for the first five years maintaining religious policies and traditions just like his father. However, in his fifth year on the throne, he underwent a profound religious transformation and shifted his devotion from the cult of the god Amun to the cult of the sun god Aten, disk of the sun, most likely a symbolic grouping of the symbol of Ra. Over the next 12 years, he brought about a fundamental religious transformation, abolishing the traditional religious rites of Egypt, primarily the cult of Amon., and instituted the world's first known state, monotheistic religion and, according to some, monotheism itself.