Montu

The Falcon God of War

Domain: War, Strength & Victory
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Element: Fire
Relics of Power: Khopesh Scimitar

Speak with Montu

The full Codex

4 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Ancient Egyptians

Region

Nile Valley, Egypt

Period

c. 3100 BC – 400 AD

The Egyptian gods were worshipped for over three millennia along the banks of the Nile, with monumental temples at Karnak, Luxor, and Heliopolis. The pharaohs were held to be divine, and life revolved around cosmic order (Maat) and preparation for the afterlife. The cult endured until the rise of Christianity in Roman Egypt.

At the Opet festival, Amun's sacred barque sailed from Karnak to Luxor amid celebrating crowds. In the temples, priests woke, dressed, and fed the god's statue every day, and the Beautiful Festival of the Valley carried the deities to visit the shore of the dead.

At a glance

Montu, written Menthu by Budge and Mntw by Breasted, is the Egyptian war god tied to Thebes and Hermonthis. The texts read show him in three ways: as a god with a falcon head and solar disk, as a local bull-headed form, and as a model of comparison for the pharaoh in battle. The open sources contain no narrative myth: what exists are titles, quotations in royal inscriptions and two passages of the Book of the Dead. This study covers that material and marks where the reading is Budge's rather than the ancient text's.

10 min read · Reviewed on October 14, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The falcon, the solar disk, the scimitar and the Buchis bull

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Breasted, James Henry (ed.), . read
Breasted, James Henry (ed.), . read
Budge, E. A. Wallis (trad.), . read

Studies

Budge, E. A. Wallis, The Gods of the Egyptians, or Studies in Egyptian Mythology, vol. 2. 1904. open

Name and epithets

Montu appears in the sources read under two modern spellings. Budge writes Menthu and Menthu-Ra; Breasted transcribes Montu and, in an inscription of Amenhotep III, gives the Egyptian form in brackets as Mntw.

In the ancient sources

Pyramid Texts, pyramid of Mer-en-Ra, Sixth Dynasty, according to Budge. The dead king goes forth "as Menth", descends "like Ba" and hunts "like Ba-ashem-f".

The myths

The falcon-headed god and the solar disk. According to Budge, the common image of Menthu is a man with a falcon's head, wearing the solar disk with the uraeus and two tall plumes.

Worship and archaeology

Budge states that Menthu was probably an old local god, important enough that the priests of Amen incorporated him into the great god of Thebes.

How the god was depicted

Budge's description is the only one this study could read. The common form is a man with a falcon's head, solar disk, uraeus and two tall plumes.

What scholars debate

Sun god or the force of the bull. Budge proposes two explanations for the god's character. By the first, Menthu would be the destroying heat of the Sun, which would explain the disk and the link with Ra.

After antiquity

Budge describes Menthu as a solar form and records his bull form at Tchert in The Gods of the Egyptians, vol. II, pp. 23–28. Breasted records royal formulas invoking Montu in Ancient Records of Egypt, vol.

Did you know?

At Kadesh, Ramesses II compares himself to three war figures in sequence: Montu, Baal and Sutekh. Breasted translates the first as "his father Montu" and the third as "Sutekh, the great in strength".

Codex relic

Khopesh Scimitar. The curved sword of the warrior pharaohs, blessed by Montu to ensure victory in battle.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

The legends, the myth, the cult and relics are part of the full Codex. You can open 1 full entry for free every day; to open all 500 deities with no limits and no ads, subscribe to Codex PRO.

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