In the complex and diverse pantheon of ancient Egypt, Mut was one of the most important mother goddesses. Associated with Thebes, she rose to prominence with her city at the end of the Middle Kingdom and during the New Kingdom, forming part of the Theban Triad with Amun-Ra and Khonsu.
Mother and Creator
Mut means mother, and she was often depicted with a divine child in her lap, making this her primary characteristic.
In the Theban creation myth, she is one of the first deities who emerged from the primordial waters of Nu. She emerged as a serpent and embodied the Uraeus, the cobra that came to represent sovereignty in Egypt.
Some rare stories suggest that she gave birth to the world alone through parthenogenesis. She was sometimes called “Mut, who gives birth, but was herself not born of any.: This was in part due to the belief that there were no male vultures.
More usually, she was part of a triad.
The original triad was the male god Min, the female goddess Mut, and their son Min-Hor-Nacht. But by the end of the Middle Kingdom, Min had been replaced by Amun, the patron god of the pharaohs. He was conflated with the sun god Ra to form the supreme god Amun Ra, and his son with Mut was Khonsu, the moon. This is how they were worshipped at the Temple of Karnak in Thebes, but the earliest depiction of them as a triad dates to the reign of Hatshepsut, in the New Kingdom’s 18th dynasty.
Sometimes, the relationship between the three gods is more fluid. Rather than father and son, Amun-Ra and Khonsu are manifestations of the same being, with Amun-Ra devoured by Mut and rebirthed as the young Khonsu. She was sometimes called “mother of the sun in whom he rises.” This makes her mother, wife, and daughter. She is basically an all-encompassing manifestation of the divine feminine.
At her temple at Karnak, wall depictions show only female priestesses and worshippers. This is the only known example of exclusively female worship, which reinforces the idea that she embodies all that is divinely feminine.
She was closely associated with female members of the royal family in the New Kingdom. For example, the wife of Ramesses II was Nefertari Merytnmut, Nefertari, beloved of Mut.
As a mother, she was revered for her nurturing and protective qualities. She was frequently invoked in the context of childbirth, fertility, and familial matters.
Appearance and Attributes
In her very earliest depiction, Mut was a vulture goddess, and the vulture was the core of her hieroglyph. She maintained aspects of the vulture over the millennia.
Mut is usually depicted as a woman with outstretched wings of a vulture holding an ankh. She wears the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt, and the feather of Ma’at lies at her feet. She also sometimes wore a vulture crown.
She was also sometimes depicted as a woman with the head of a lioness, cow, or cobra. She was also sometimes depicted as a serpent and known as the Eye of Ra. This associates her with several female goddesses who shared the same title, including Sekhmet, Bastet, and Tefnut. They were generally benign but could take on fierce forms as Ra’s enforcer. Most had leonine features as avengers, and Mut was also sometimes a cat goddess.
Festivals and Temples
Mut featured prominently in the Opet festival, an annual festival held during flood season to rejuvenate the god Amun-Ra and reinforce the pharaoh’s rule by divine right.
One of the principal aspects of the festival was the procession of Amun-Ra’s sun barque. Priests carried it along a roughly three-kilometre avenue of sphinxes between the temples of Karnak and Luxor, along with smaller barques for Mut and Khonsu. The procession included chanting, dancers, musicians, and other signs of celebration and rebirth.
Most of what we know about the festival comes from a depiction of the procession on the Colonnade Hall of the Luxor Temple.
There was also a Festival of Mut, which seems to have been celebrated in her dedicated temple at Karnak. Her statue was adorned with rich garments and jewellery and was carried out of her sanctuary in a similar ceremonial procession.
Mut’s temple at Karnak, referred to as Isheru, was built in the New Kingdom just south of the Karnak temple. The temple complex was surrounded by a crescent-shaped lake that reflected the primeval waters of Nu. Her temple contained hundreds of statues of Sekhmet as the fierce, protector aspect of Mut.
In addition to her temple at Karnak, she also had temples at Djannet (Tanis), Zau (Sais), the Oases of Kharga, and Dakhla.
Esoteric Mut
Mut’s cult declined as attention moved to Isis, but she continued to be worshipped and depicted in ancient Egyptian art well into the Roman period.
As more esoteric religions began to emerge in Egypt in the Hellenistic period, Mut was incorporated into a new goddess, Mut-Isis-Nekhbet. This goddess was often depicted with three heads: a lion, a woman, and a vulture, representing the coming together of these divine feminine powers. However, he was also often depicted with an erect phallus, allowing her to encompass masculine energy.
This goddess primarily appeared on magical papyri and amulets, suggesting that she belonged to the mystic rather than the mainstream.
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