MontuCYNTHIA MAY SHEIKHOLESLAMI

The Egyptian god Montu, an anthropomor-

phic falcon-headed solar deity, has a head-

dress of a solar disk with two uraei in front

and double feathers behind, and frequently

wears a leather corselet imitating feathers as

armor. Montu is the “Horus of Thebes,”

agriculturally the wealthiest district in

southern Egypt. His sacred animal is the

bull, and this is perhaps why he is paired

with the cow-goddess HATHOR of Dendra

in royal rituals. Montu’s partners are the

goddesses Tjanenet and Iunyt, and, from the

New Kingdom on, Raettawy.

Tjanenet (the meaning of whose name is

unknown) appears first at TOD and then at

Armant with Iunyt (whose name means

“She of Iunu (Armant)”) in the 11th Dynasty,

and both goddesses are closely linked with

Montu at these two temple sites throughout

their history. Both goddesses have anthropo-

morphic form and often have cow horns with

sun disk headdress (also associated with

Hathor of Dendera, who is connected to the

temple at MEDAMUD), and sometimes wear

feathered dresses. In the New Kingdom,

Tjanenet also has a unique headdress based

on the hieroglyphic sign for the uterus of a

cow, while Iunyt may appear without any

headdress. In the great college of deities at

KARNAK, which is headed by Montu, Tjanenet

and Iunyt appear in the company of the croc-

odile god SOBEK, whose Upper Egyptian cult

center was at Sumenu, 14 km south of Armant.

Raet-tawy (whose name means “the female Re

of the Two Lands,” originating in an epithet of

HATSHEPSUTas the daughter of the sun god Re at

DEIR EL-BAHARI), appears as Montu’s consort in

the New Kingdom, particularly at Karnak, and

she is the mother of a child deity Hor-pa-Re

(Horpre), whose chapel was constructed next

to the Montu temple at North Karnak in the

Late Period. Like Montu’s other partners, she

regularly wears cow horns with a sun disk

headdress.

Temples of Montu (also known in the

form Montu-Re from the 11th Dynasty on)

at Armant (with Late and Roman period

cemeteries for the bull and its cow-mother),

Tod, and Medamud (with a Late Period ora-

cle of the bull), linked by processions, along

with the “falcon’s nest” on the mountain

peak across the Nile from Medamud, marked

the borders of the province of Thebes, and

Montu, in his warrior aspect (in which he

sometimes appears as a falcon-headed grif-

fin), protected it as well as the pharaoh in

battle. Montu’s territory was centered in the

Middle Kingdom on the complex of

Nebhepetre Mentuhotep, re-uniter of Egypt

in the 11th Dynasty, who was idolized in

Thebes, and then at the temple dedicated to

Montu and Amun at North Karnak from the

later 18th Dynasty on.

The lunar god Khonsu also takes the

guise of Montu at Karnak in the New King-

dom, most probably to enable the king,

divinized as Re-Horakhty, to be included

in the Theban theology as the son of

Amun and MUT, as Khonsu was. The child

god Hor-sema-tawy (Horsomtus), whose

name (which means “Horus-Uniter-of-the-

Two-Lands”) is perhaps derived from the

Horus name of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep, can

likewise appear with the iconography of

Montu at Dendera.

Colossal statues of Amenhotep III as

“Nebmaatre-Montu-of-the-Rulers” at the

Tenth Pylon at Karnak and of Rameses II

as “Usermaatre-Montu-of-the-Two-Lands” at

Piramesse (Qantir) in the Delta, representing

the king divinized as Montu, were worshipped

at Piramesse particularly by soldiers in the

Ramesside army. As Montu was primarily

a deity of the state religion, his cult did not

have widespread popular appeal.

From the Old and Middle Kingdoms and

the 18th Dynasty, some two dozen priests

of Montu are attested for all of his temples

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,

and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 4591–4592.

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah15285

1

in the Theban nome, but the majority served

in Thebes and Armant. In the Ramesside

period, high priests of Montu are docu-

mented at Armant, Tod, and Thebes, along

with prophets, god’s fathers, purifiers, lectors,

scribes, craftsmen, treasury officials, and

a number of temple songstresses and their

superiors. Still, the best documented temple

staffs are at Thebes and Armant. One 19th

Dynasty temple official served in a temple of

Montu in the Delta, probably at Piramesse

(Qantir), when Montu along with the

Ramesside armies protected the borders of

Egypt. The importance of the cult and priest-

hood of Montu increased in Thebes during

the Third Intermediate Period, culminating

under the Kushite rulers of the 25th Dynasty.

About one-third of the statues of the period

from the Karnak Cachette belong to priests of

Montu, and the burial equipment of the

many who were interred in shaft tombs in

the terraces of the Hatshepsut temple at Deir

el-Bahari was sumptuous for the time. In

this period, the priests of Montu controlled

important positions in the temple treasury at

Karnak. The 25th Dynasty priests of Montu

also officiated in the cult of Mut as protectors

of the Divine Eye. In addition, they had

a number of titles related to the cult of OSIRIS,

evidence that the role of Montu in the rituals

for the ancestral gods of Thebes at Djeme

(probably dating back to at least the Ramesside

period at the small temple of MEDINET HABU

(DJEME)) during the Osirian rites on 26 Khoiak

was used to support the legitimation of the

Kushite pharaohs in Thebes. This priestly and

theological function became increasingly sig-

nificant when the Macedonian Ptolemies and

the Romans ruled Egypt, as attested by inscrip-

tions from the monumental pylon gateways

built during their reigns at Medamud, North

Karnak, and Medinet Habu, and a crypt at

Armant. There is no published study of the

priests of Montu in the four precincts of

Montu in the Theban nome in the Ptolemaic

and Roman periods, although priests are

attested for the cult centers of Montu in vari-

ous documents of the time, and building activ-

ity continued at the temples into the Roman

period.

SEE ALSO: Amenhotep (Amenophis) I–III;

Armant (Hermonthis); Khons (Khonsu);

Mentuhotep I–VII; Rameses I–XI.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Betro, M. (2006) “Sobeka Sumeno.” In S. Pernigotti

and M. Zecchi, eds., Il coccodrillo e il cobra: aspetti

dell’universo religioso egiziano nel Fayyum

e altrove: 91–102. Bologna.

Borghouts, J. F. (1982) “Month.” In W. Helck and

E. Otto, eds., Lexikon der Agyptologie, vol. 4:

200–4. Wiesbaden.

Derchain-Urtel, M.-T. (1986) “Tjenenet.” In

W. Helck and E. Otto, eds., Lexikon der

Agyptologie, vol. 6: 610. Wiesbaden.

Goldbrunner, L. (2004) Buchis. Eine Untersuchung

zur Theologie des heiligen Stieres in Theben

zur griechisch-romischen Zeit. Brussels.

Gutbub, A. (1984) “Rat-taui.” In W. Helck and

E. Otto, eds., Lexikon der Agyptologie, vol. 5:

151–5. Wiesbaden.

Habachi, L. (1969) Features of the deification of

Ramesses II. Gluckstadt.

Jankuhn, D. (1980) “lunit.” In W. Helck and E.

Otto, eds., Lexikon der Agyptologie, vol. 3: 212.

Wiesbaden.

Sheikholeslami, C. M. (2009) “The end of the

Libyan Period and the resurgence of the cult of

Montu.” In G. P. F. Broekman, R. J. Demaree, and

O. E. Kaper, eds., The Libyan Period in Egypt:

historical and cultural studies into the 21st–24th

Dynasties: 361–74. Leuven.

Werner, E. K. (1986) “Montu and the ‘Falcon Ships’

of the Eighteenth Dynasty.” Journal of

the American Research Center in Egypt 23: 107–23.

Werner, E. K. (2001) “Montu.” In D. B. Redford, ed.,

The Oxford encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, vol. 2:

435–6. Oxford.

Zivie-Coche, C. (2009) “Ogdoade thebaine

a l’epoque ptolemaıque et ses antecedents.” In

C. Thiers, ed., Documents de theologies thebaines

tardives: 167–225. Montpellier.

2