#bukhis

[into-strange-skies]

Dua Bukhis! The Old Bull, the Strong of Limb, He who is Victorious!

The fires the past month have hit home - literally - and we’ve been fighting state-wide, non-stop, for months. In these trying times I take my strength from the Old Bull.

[into-strange-skies]

Another devotional piece for Montu. Bukhis, based off the Tunisian aurochs skull, arguably one of the oldest specimens of aurochs not only in North Africa, but the world. The skull is fractured and missing from the lacrimals down, along with a considerable amount of the maxilla. Nonetheless, its impressive and imposing. The full reach of the horns is ~150cm!

[into-strange-skies]

Put my studies for these pieces to good use and drew up a profile of the old bull himself. Dua Bukhis!

[into-strange-skies]

I snagged a gorgeous bull skull pin for Monthu to put on a jacket I’m making. I’ve already got a pin on the way from a recent kickstarter for Sobek, and I wanted something for Monthu as well.The falcon pins I could find were a bit mediocre but a red bull skull? Absolutely on brand.

[into-strange-skies]

A Bundle of Bukhis

Finally sat down and did something I’ve been wanting to do for a while: drew some little Bukhis sketches in the style of a pictograph or petroglyph. We have quite a good record of aurochs in both pictographs, like the Laseaux cave paintings, and petroglyphs, like the Libyan bulls and the Grotta del Romito one. They show a remarkable consistency of traits that we know to be distinctly aurochs: wide, upright horns, a definite point to the hip a a result of a more vertical pelvis than modern taurine cattle, an athletic build with the distinct ‘S’ shape, a trim waist, and a flat to convex profile.

Interestingly, the art we have of North African aurochs hint at a pale saddle, larger dewlap, and lower horns; we see other examples of these in other art from early Egyptian pottery and wall motiffs. We also see hints of these traits in the fossil record. One of the oldest and largest skulls on record is a North African skull from Tunisia. The horns are barely fifty degrees above the line of the nose, compared to a typical sixty to seventy degrees seen in European and Indian aurochs skulls. The saddle is likely the result of adaptation to a much warmer climate, as is the larger dewlap. Both would be important in thermoregulation. I tried to keep these traits in mind when drawing the little Bukhis pictographs. Historically, and for me, Bukhis is an ancient, wild bull, so I draw him like one.

Too often I sit down to draw devotional art and get caught up with making it ‘perfect’ and loosing the intent which I was drawing it with, which kind of defeats the purpose. That in mind, I threw on my playlist for Montu, and tried to have fun with it - and I think it worked.

[into-strange-skies]

Hello, I’m asking from my Kemetic blog at Into-The-Duat. So Montu has recently come into my life and I was wondering what you could tell me about Him?

G’day, Anon!

What could I tell you about Montu? Well,I have a 24 page document of summarised research I’ve been accumulating for years, plus a separate document on his Bukhis aspect. That’s a bit over the top though, so I’ll do my best to give you a quick rundown.

Firstly, he’s a very old god, even by Egyptian standards.  Despite this, there’s not all that much information on him, compared to other netjeru.He existed locally long before being amalgamated into the larger kemetic pantheon. Officially, Montu is widely regarded as a patron deity of war and wartime. He didn’t start that way, rather, he started as a deity with both solar and celestial associations. Over time, with thanks to some wars both local and abroad, he took on a martial status. Somewhere along the way, he gained the Bukhis aspect, representing his strength and prowess during battle. Montu’s warry reputation meant he got a spot on the solar barque, often paired with Sutekh on the bow defending it. A bit of a quirk, he was also involved in overseeing weddings and some domestic aspects, probably because he’s got a knack for upholding ma’at as law. Thebes was his main stomping ground before he went all over Egypt as a part of the wider pantheon.

Montu’s representations are fairly straight forward. He’s represented as a falcon, or anthropomorphically as a falcon-headed man wearing a crown that consists of a solar disc, two plumes, and one or two uraei. He also has a bovine aspect, the Bukhis bull, which is only rarely seen as an anthropomorphic form. This bull was described most often as white with a black face, or taking the appearance of the wild bulls of the region. The wild bull is an important distinction - Bukhis is a wild bull, not a domestic one like Apis. Henadology has decent pages on both Montu and Bukhis.This is already a lot of writing, and I’m not sure if you want offering suggestions or any UPG about interacting with him, so I’ll stop it here. Drop me another line if you want of that kind of info!

-Ales

[into-strange-skies]

That moment when a vaguely related search leads to a detailed, peer reviewed, and heavily resourced paper that you haven’t read before, dealing with an aspect of your god that you don’t have much on: DUA NETJERU!!!

[the-tabularium]

FIRELINE

A very personal piece and a great learning opportunity.

I can without a doubt say this is arguably one of my greatest art achievements in years. Not perfect by any means but I've learned a lot, improved exponentially and came out of it with an image ready to print! Another version without the Bukhis will be posted to show off the full background because I worked my feathery butt off on it.