(prehistoric/mythic)
by T. Apiryon
Also known as Mont, Menthu or Monthu, and referred to as the “Lord of Thebes.” Egyptian solar/martial god, and Nome-god of Hermonthis (Annu Qemau). The Greeks identified him with Apollo and Ares.
Mentu is depicted as a male deity with a falcon’s (or bull’s) head, clad in an apron, wearing a crown with a disk and two tall ostrich plumes, holding a phoenix wand in his left hand and an Ankh in his right hand; or brandishing a scimitar. His sacred animal was the bull. Ankh-af-na-Khonsu, one of Crowley’s claimed previous incarnations, whose funerary tablet served as the Stele of Revealing, was a priest of Mentu.
References:
Budge, Sir E.A. Wallis; The Gods of the Egyptians [1904], Dover, NY 1969
Forlong, J.G.R.; Faiths of Man, a Cyclopaedia of Religions [Bernard Quaritch, 1906], University Books, NY 1964
Viaud, J.; “Egyptian Mythology” in The New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, Hamlyn, NY 1959/1968
Original Publication Date: 5/11/95
Originally published in Red Flame No. 2 – Mystery of Mystery: A Primer of Thelemic Ecclesiastical Gnosticism by Tau Apiryon and Helena; Berkeley, CA 1995 e.v.