Mythology

Montu was the falcon-headed war god venerated in Thebes and its surrounding areas. Although he appears in the Pyramid Texts and in some archaeological contexts of Old Kingdom date, it was with the Theban rulers of the 11th dynasty that Montu rose to importance. Three rulers of this dynasty bore the birth name Montuhotep or ‘Montu is content’, and the god became a deity of national standing worshipped in his own right and also associated with Horus under the name ‘Horus of the strong arm’. As the Middle Kingdom progressed, Montu also began to be viewed as an Upper Egyptian counterpart of Re of Heliopolis, due perhaps to the similarity of the name of his cult centre, luny, with that of lunu or Heliopolis, and the two deities were worshipped as the combined Mont-Re. The god was thus later equated by the Greeks wdth Apollo. During the 12th dynasty, however, Montu’s importance began to wane as the god Amun rose to power in the Theban area. Nevertheless, the war god’s popularity continued with martially vigorous rulers of the New Kingdom such as Tuthmosis III and others who compared themselves to him as heroes who fought ‘like Montu in his might’. Montu’s consorts were the little-known Theban goddess Tjenenyet and the solar goddess Raettawy.

Iconography

Montu was represented in a number of ways. Originally a falcon god, other forms were applied to him as time progressed. A ceremonial axe from the burial

Tuthmosis TV slays an Asiatic captive before the martial deity Montu, loho holds a khepesh sickle-swo'rd and a symbol of tlie king’s long reign. Ivory wrist ornament. 18th dynasty. Egyptian Museum, Berlin.

The god Montu ‘Lard of Thebeswith characteristic solar disk and tivin plumes, escorts the ‘pharaoh’ Alexander the Great and offers Mm life Relief scene m the inner area of Luxor Temple.

Of the 18th-dynasty queen Ahhotep depicts Montu in the form of a ferocious winged griffin, but this iconography was possibly influenced by Syrian sources, since most representations of the god show him in semi-anthropomorphic form with a human body and the head of a falcon. Sometimes he carries the curved khepesh sword as a symbol of his warlike nature. Montu usually wears the sun disk and uraeus but is distinguished from Re and other falcon deities by the two tall plumes which also adorn his head. When depicted in fully falcon form, the god is also identified by this headdress. Montu

Could also be represented in the form of his sacred bull, the Buchis (see p. 172), or occasionally in the later dynasties as a bull-headed man.