Mut, also known as Maut and Mout, was the ancient Egyptian goddess of motherhood and fertility. She, alongside her consort Amun, were among the second generation of Primordials. She and Amun were also the parents of the Lunar deity Khonsu.
Description[]
Mut is depicted as a woman with the wings of a vulture, holding an ankh, wearing the united crown of Upper and Lower Egypt and a dress of bright red or blue, with the feather of the goddess Ma'at at her feet.
Overview[]
Upon her emergence from Nu (Nun), Mut proceeded to give birth to the first gods of the world. It is for this reason she is sometimes known as She Who Gives Birth or Mother of the Gods. Other accounts state that she did not give birth to any children; rather, she adopted two gods – Khonsu (the god of the moon) and Menthu (the god of war).
According to some accounts, Mut is believed to have emerged from the Nile River. The sun god Ra was sometimes seen as her father. And if that were the case, the likes of Bastet, Hathor and Sekhmet would be her siblings. This would also mean that her epithet, Eye of Ra, is not misplaced. She picked up this epithet after the god Amun merged with Ra.
Mut was sometimes said to have given birth to the world through parthenogenesis, but more often she was said to have a husband, the solar creator god Amun-Ra. Although Mut was believed by her followers to be the mother of everything in the world, she was particularly associated as the mother of the lunar child god Khonsu. At the Temple of Karnak in Egypt's capital city of Thebes, the family of Amun-Ra, Mut and Khonsu were worshipped together as the Theban Triad.