From The Alpha and the Omega - Volume III
by Jim A. Cornwell, Copyright © July 20, 2002, all rights reserved "Volume III - Gods/Goddesses of Ancient Egypt"

MUT (Mewet, Auramooth, Maut)

To return to the Coma Decan (Mut may be the figure holding Leo's tail, and the figure on ESNE Plate 79 at the tail of the Sphinx), Denderah Decan 17 - Grand Temple Decan 4 (Mut mother of Khonsu), Amaunet (Thebes less important than Mut), or List of Netjeru.

    Mut means "mother," as in mother goddess, the queen of the gods at Waset (Thebes) the new capital of the pharaohs, arising in power as the original wife of the god Amun, replacing Amaunet, the invisible goddess, during the Middle Kingdom.
    She produced or adopted Khonsu, the moon god, and the three were worshiped as a triad at Waset and at the Temple of Amen at Ipet-Resyt (Luxor).    Originally their adopted son was Montu, the god of war, but he was dropped in favour of the moon god, possibly because the shape of Mut's sacred lake was in the shape of a crescent moon.
    She was depicted as a woman with a vulture skin on her head, together with the double crown of Upper Egypt, also sometimes with wings, or a vulture, usually wearing the crowns of royalty, the vulture headdress of the New Kingdom queens.    Later she was shown as woman with the head of a lioness or cat, as a cow (sky) or as a cobra as she took on the attributes of the other Egyptian goddesses.
    The ancient Egyptian link between vultures and motherhood lead to her name as an ancient Egyptian word for mother - mwt.    In Southern Africa, the name for an Egyptian vulture is synonymous with the term applied to lovers, for vultures like pigeons are always seen in pairs.    Because of its immense size and power and its ability to sore high up in the sky, the vulture is considered to be nearer to God who is believed to reside above the sky.    On the other hand the wide wingspan of a vulture may be seen as all encompassing and providing a protective cover to its infants.    They adopted what seemed to them at the time to be motherly qualities, the qualities of protecting and nurturing their young.
    Mut became a national goddess during the New Kingdom, representing the Eye of Re, a form associated with Hathor and Sekhmet, thus a daughter of the sun god Ra, when Amun was assimilated with Ra, becoming Amen-Ra, in the position of the sun-god.    At this time she was shown as a lioness, representing the fierce heat of the sun, and so Mut was given the form of a lion headed woman.    She was adored at one of the most popular festivals at the time, the Festival of Mut.    So in the New Kingdom she acquired the position as a primeval goddess, called: "Mother of the Sun in Whom He rises."
    During the Festival of Mut in Waset, a statue of the goddess was placed on a boat and sailed around the small crescent shaped sacred lake at her temple at Ipet-Isut (Karnak).    In a yearly matrimonial ceremony during the New Year festival, Amen travelled from his temple at Ipet-Resyt down to Ipet-Isut to visit her.    Originally this was for the fertility goddess Ipet (Taweret), as a way of ensuring fertility for the coming year.
    As seen in the Pyramid Text of Unas, Unas hath had union with the goddess Mut, Unas hath drawn unto himself the flame of Isis, Unas hath united himself to the blue water lily.

    Other sources claims there was also a composite deity called "Mut-Isis-Nekhbet, the Great Mother and Lady" who was shown as a winged goddess with leonine feet, an erect penis and three heads - a lion head wearing Min's headdress, a woman's head wearing the double crown of Egypt and a vulture's head wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt.
    In The Book of the Dead, a spell was spoken over a statue of her.    The statue had her with three heads - one of the heads was that of a lioness wearing a headdress of two tall plumes, a human head wearing the double crown, and the third being the head of a vulture, again wearing the headdress of two plumes - as well as wings, an erect penis and the paws of a lion.    This spell was to protect the dead from being disturbed, and it linked her to Bast, Sekhmet and the sun.    In this form she was called both Mut, but addressed as Sekhmet-Bast-Ra.
    When she started to take over the positions of other goddesses, her name was linked to the older goddess' - such as Mut-Temt, Mut-Wadjet-Bast and Mut-Sekhmet-Bast-Menhit.    She also started to take on the aspects and attributes of Isis, such as Mut's form of Mut-Isis-Nekhbet.    She seems to have also taken the attributes of even the sky goddess Nut, mother of the five deities - Osiris, Horus the Elder, Set, Isis and Nephthys.    "I have given unto thee the sovereignty of the father Geb, and the goddess Mut, thy mother, who gave birth to the gods, brought thee forth as the first-born of five gods, and created thy beauties and fashioned thy members." -- The Book of the Dead
    The "Mistress of Isheru" (the sacred lake around her temple) had a large temple mostly built by Amenhotep III.    The earliest parts of the temple, though, were built by pharaohs Hatshepsut and Thothmose III.    Later rulers such as Rameses II, Rameses III and King Taharqa of the Kushite Dynasty XXV added to the Mut Precinct, expanding the precinct and rebuilding the temple.    Rameses II's wife, Nefertari, was called Nefertari Merytnmut - "Nefertari, Beloved of Mut."    The temple of Mut continued to prosper during the Ptolemaic period, right through to the conquest of Egypt by Rome in about 30 B.C.    By the late Roman period, the temple of Mut was no longer in use, and started to fall into disrepair.
    The temple, Hut-Mut (hwt-mwt), was situated to the south of the great temple of Amen-Ra, with an avenue of sphinxes approaching her temple.    She was worshiped there as "Mut, the Great Lady of Isheru, the Lady of Heaven, the Queen of the Gods."    Mut was believed to have existed since primeval times, existing along side Nun, the primeval waters.    This was probably due to her replacement of Amaunet, one of the primeval Ogdoad - the great eight - who lived in the waters.    In her temple she was depicted in the form black basalt statues, showing Mut as the Eye of Ra, Sekhmet.    The precinct of Mut lies about 100 yards south of the precinct of Amen to which it is oriented, and covers an area of about twenty acres.    The focal point of the complex is the temple of Mut itself, surrounded on three sides by a lake called the Isheru, a term used to describe sacred lakes specific to precincts of goddesses who can be leonine in form.    The Mut Precinct's Isheru, fed probably by an underground spring, is the largest in Egypt that is preserved.
    The Mut expedition also uncovered a gate in an early western enclosure wall that bares traces of a possible graffito of Senmut, an important official under Hatshepsut, and the cartouches of Tothmose III (perhaps replacing Hatshepsut's cartouche, an Amarna period effacement of the name of Amen, and an inscription by Seti I recording the restoration of the gate.
    Despite the evidence of early Dynasty XVIII activity at the site, many publications continue to identify the Mut temple as a work of Amenhotep III, primarily because of the many statues of the goddess Sekhmet found at the site that bear his name.    However, it is now thought that the Sekhmet statues bearing the king's name were originally erected in his funerary temple on the west bank of the Nile.    They were probably brought to the Mut Precinct during Dynasty XIX when Mut and Sekhmet became more closely associated and rituals involving both with the Isheru first appear to have gained prominence.
-- The Precinct of The Goddess Mut, The Brooklyn Museum of Art
    She was also worshiped in Djannet (Tanis), Zau (Sau, Sai, Sais), the Oases of Jarga and Dajla.    Her followers believed her as the great mother, the one who created and brought forth everything that existed.    This was probably why she was sometimes depicted with male parts - she was not just one who gave birth to life, she was one who conceived life itself.    She was "Mut, Who Giveth Birth, But Was Herself Not Born of Any."    Another reason why Mut may have been seen as being able to have conceived by herself was the ancient Egyptian believe that there were no male griffon vultures (the vulture of the Egyptian goddesses and royalty).    This vulture (Gyps fulvus) has no significant markings between the female and the male of the species.    They believed that this bird conceived with the wind.

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    This file was created on June 18, 2005.

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