On lunar deities and birds' heads (or skulls)

[cimorene]

So did every one else immediately go to Wikipedia thinking "I don't remember anything about this Khonsu" when watching Moon Knight, and then immediately learn that Khonsu is actually an Egyptian god depicted with the head of a falcon, so he looks nothing like in the comics/show? It's Thoth, the other god of the moon (and scribes, wisdom, and justice), who was depicted with the head of an ibis. I mean, they're both gods of the moon, so I suspect they're just sort of folding them into one. Not unprecedented, in big pantheons with long histories and so on. But my suspicion is that Moon Knight, the comic, originally went with the ibis head simply because it looked more badass than the falcon head.

Comments

[gloss]

(here via network)
I found it puzzling! And then promptly started fanwanking it into something something Khonshu isn't who he claims to be. /o\

[cimorene]

I think it's more likely that he's really both of them. I couldn't find any indication at Wikipedia that they were ever regarded as the same deity, but I guess there's some similarity between "god of justice" (Thoth, not Khonsu actually, they gave him a big part of Thoth's... schtick as well) and "protecting travelers by night". And of course it seems in ancient cultures, and in polytheistic pantheons, it's not uncommon to regard multiple deities as faces or roles of the same entity, who takes on different attributes at different times. The Egyptians themselves had a bunch of different aspects of Thoth with their own names, appearances, and sets of accessories (not including Khonsu, though). Since Thoth was already god of the moon and apparently a more signficant god in general, I can't see why he would bother trying to pose as Khonsu, especially if he didn't bother hiding his most identifiable feature (the head)... not to mention that his central schtick, justice, is Thoth's, so someone would surely notice.