A name and a job. Nothing else survives — and that is the finding, not a gap in our work.
Menhit mnḥyt
the lady of Latopolis
Overview
Menhit exists in this reference for one reason: two other entries name her, and neither could say who she was.
She turns up twice in the archived sources, both times as the far side of somebody else's identification, and this entry is the result of searching for her properly.
Attestation history
As a form of Hathor at Latopolis. Brugsch compiled a list of the names and forms Hathor took in the large cities of Upper and Lower Egypt, which Budge reproduces. At Latopolis she was identified "with Nit, Nebuut, and Menhit" [budge-1904].
As an identification of Satet. "The goddess Satet was identified as a form of the star Sept, of Elephantine, and of Menhet, lady of Latopolis" [budge-1904].
In a composite name of Mut. Among Mut's compound forms Budge lists Mut-Sekhet-Bast-Menhit [budge-1904] — Mut joined with the lioness of Memphis, the cat of Bubastis, and Menhit.
What the texts say
Everything known about her is somebody else's sentence. She is a form of Hathor; Satet is a form of her; Mut absorbs her into a four-part compound. In none of the three does she act, speak, or receive a description.
The lioness company is the one substantive hint. Mut-Sekhet-Bast-Menhit puts her in a compound with two well-attested lioness goddesses. Menhit is a lioness goddess in the modern literature — and that is not in any archived source here, so it is recorded in the open threads rather than in the entry.
Latopolis is Esna, which is Khnum's great late temple site. A local goddess of that town, identified with the goddess of the neighbouring cataract (Satet), is a plausible regional arrangement — but the sources give the identification without the geography, and the connection is inference.
Why the entry exists at all. She was one of six names dangling inside other entries' prose with nothing behind them. Searching them properly produced one full entry (Iusaaset), this short one, one correction (Aat is probably not a place), and three genuine negatives. A dangling name is worth resolving even when the answer is "very little" — otherwise it sits in someone else's text implying a page that does not exist.
Iconography
None recorded. Budge names her three times and describes her never.
Cult and practice
Latopolis (Esna), by implication of the epithet. Nothing further recorded here.
The record
Every claim above traces to a row here. Source, exact place in that source, and what it actually supports.
| Source | Locus | Attests |
|---|---|---|
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* I, Brugsch's list of Hathor's local forms | Hathor identified with Nit, Nebuut and Menhit at Latopolis |
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* II, on the Elephantine triad | Satet identified as a form of "Menhet, lady of Latopolis" |
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* II, forms of Mut | the composite Mut-Sekhet-Bast-Menhit |
Sources
[budge-1904]— Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (1904), vols I–II. Public domain, archived insources-texts/. Budge caveat applies (04-BIBLIOGRAPHY.md); note he spells her both Menhit and Menhet.[brugsch-religion]— Brugsch, cited by Budge for the list of Hathor's local forms. Public domain; not archived here.[wilkinson-2003]— Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses. In copyright; cited only.
Open questions
- Confirm the lioness form. Standard in modern accounts, absent from every archived source, and supported here only by the company she keeps in Mut-Sekhet-Bast-Menhit.
- Get the Esna temple inscriptions. Latopolis is Khnum's great late site and its texts are the obvious place for a local goddess; they are not archived and are also wanted for
khnum.md. - Find Menhit acting independently in any text.
- Establish whether Menhit and Menhet are one goddess — Budge uses both spellings without comment, and this corpus has already found him giving one god two names (Ut-metu / Hetch-met).
Cite this entry
Research grade: ○name-only — A name and a function in a spell list. That is all that survives.
"Menhit", The Egyptian God Corpus,
graded name-only, retrieved 2026-08-10.