Montu

Summary

Montu is the Egyptian god of war, a falcon wearing two tall plumes and a sun disc, shown from the Late Period also with a bull's head. The Global Egyptian Museum calls him the personification of those aspects of kingship that have to do with conquering other countries, and says he was the old chief god of the Theban nome before Amun took that role. So four kings of the Eleventh Dynasty, rulers from Thebes, bore the name Mentuhotep, "Montu is satisfied", and in their time his first large temples were built. In the Twelfth Dynasty Amun overshadowed him, the favourite royal name becoming Amenemhat, "Amun is in front", but Montu kept the title "Lord of Thebes". Karnak has three precincts: Amun's, Mut's, and Montu's to the north.

Among his houses are Karnak and Armant, whose Egyptian name is "Heliopolis of Montu" and where he is "Lord of Armant". His consort is Raettawy, "Raet of the Two Lands", Raet being the female sun, counterpart of Ra, and her festival hymn comes from Medamud near Thebes. In the Pyramid Texts, spell 555, the dead king "has gone up to the sky as Montu".

In war the king becomes Montu. On Amenhotep II's Sphinx stela: "The strength of Mont is in his limbs", and "He was one who knew all the works of Mont; he had no equal on the field of battle." In the poem of the battle of Kadesh the Hittites surround Ramesses II alone, and he says: "I charged toward them, being like Mont, in a moment I gave them a taste of my hand, I slaughtered among them", and his enemies cry to one another: "No man is he who is among us, it is Seth great-of-strength, Baal in person!" On Piye's stela Tefnakht, prince of Sais, writes to the Kushite king in surrender: "You are Mont, the mighty bull!" Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature II, pp. 41, 67, Lichtheim III, p. 77.

The bull lives at Armant. The Global Egyptian Museum says the sacred Buchis bull of Armant was a manifestation of Montu, "the living image of Montu", with a black head and white body, and that Macrobius records it changed colour every hour. The Buchis bulls were buried in large sandstone sarcophagi in a cemetery called the Bucheum, the oldest burial dating from Nectanebo II, and beside it lies the burial place of the bulls' mothers. The bull wears Montu's two plumes, with a sun disc between its horns.

The idea Montu's image turns on is that the strength by which the king prevails is not his alone but a god's, entering his limbs in the hour of battle. The king is "like Mont" in the fight, then goes back to being king, while Montu stays at Thebes as bull and falcon.

We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this. Egyptian writes it Mnṯ.w, and the project's Egyptian essay reads it from manata, "killed, fought", or mānit, "warlike strength", grading it "medium". Lane has no root m-n-t, so we read it on the method, as a proposed reading: al-munna, which al-Jawharī's Ṣiḥāḥ gives as strength: "al-munna, with u, is strength; one says, he is weak of munna"; Ibn Sīda says it was used especially of strength of heart, and al-manīn is a strong rope. M and n are m and n, and the t at the end of munna answers the third letter. On this reading Montu is "the strength" that enters the king's limbs, as Amenhotep II's stela says: "The strength of Mont is in his limbs." Arabic lexica, m-n-n.

Linguistic Root

Al-munna, strength

The Egyptian essay reads the name from a root m-n-t meaning "killed, fought", or mānit, "warlike strength", saying it suits Montu's role in war; it compares Hebrew milḥāmā, war, and grades the reading "medium". The Roman essay names him beside Ares, Resheph and Nergal in its comparisons for Quirinus, as a god of war and strength.

The essay's letters match the Egyptian name: m and n, then a t in the place of the third Egyptian letter. But Lane has no root m-n-t, so the meaning the essay gives finds no support in the lexicon, and the Hebrew milḥāmā it compares belongs to another root, l-ḥ-m.

The proposed reading takes the first two letters from m-n-n: munna is strength in the Ṣiḥāḥ, especially strength of heart in Ibn Sīda, and manīn is a strong rope in Thaʿlab. It sets the t at the end of munna against the third Egyptian letter, ṯ. The meaning matches what the Egyptian texts say: "The strength of Mont is in his limbs", "he knew all the works of Mont". And in Egyptian the same word Mnṯ.w names the nomad tribes of the north-east, so the name may have described fighting, hardy people before it named the god.

The limit of the reading is that Egyptian ṯ is a root letter, a palatal sound, not a feminine ending, and Montu is masculine.

Key Mythic Narratives

The feast of drunkenness at Medamud

At Medamud, near Thebes, a late hymn to his consort Raettawy describes the feast of drunkenness: people gather at night, drink until they are drunk, men and women come together, and the goddess is seen. Betsy Bryan uses this hymn as a witness for the feasts of drunkenness held at the temple of Mut at Karnak from the Eighteenth Dynasty on. So Montu's consort at Medamud and Mut at Karnak are honoured at Thebes with the same kind of feast, a feast of drink and drunkenness.

Montu and Meretseger in the tomb of Userhat

In the tomb of Userhat at western Thebes, number 51, from the reign of Seti I, Montu appears with Meretseger, the cobra of the Theban mountain, beneath a kiosk; the Metropolitan Museum holds a painted facsimile.

Symbolic Reading

Montu is falcon and bull together: the falcon sees from afar and strikes, the bull pushes with its horns and does not give ground. These are the warrior's qualities as the people of Thebes saw them, the Thebans whose Eleventh Dynasty kings reunited Egypt. When Amun became the god of the state, Montu remained the image of the hour of battle alone, which the king enters and then leaves.

Cross-Cultural Parallels

In Sumer Ninurta, Enlil's eldest son, god of war and farming, goes out in the poem Lugal-e as a storm against Asag until he crushes it, then makes the stones a dam that turns the water back to the fields. Both are the fighter who goes out on the gods' behalf and guards their land.

At Rome Mars, father of Romulus and god of war, whose month Romulus made the first of the year. In Iran Verethragna, god of victory, comes to Zarathustra in ten shapes, among them a bull with yellow ears and golden horns and a bird of prey, the swiftest of birds, as Montu joins bull and falcon.

In the Kadesh poem Ramesses's enemies see him as "Seth great-of-strength, Baal in person", so Egyptian Montu and Canaanite Baal meet in the eyes of the Syrians watching the king fight. Among the forms of the sacred bull is the Buchis bull of Armant, "the living image of Montu", beside Apis at Memphis and Mnevis at Heliopolis.

In Japan the general Minamoto no Yoshiie called himself Hachiman Tarō, Hachiman's son, as the Theban kings carried Montu's name in theirs, and Hachiman is the warriors' kami of war; see Hachiman.