Maat

About Maat

Maat is the Egyptian goddess who personifies truth, justice, and the cosmic order, the principle of rightness on which the universe, the society, and the moral life of Egypt were founded. She is the daughter of the sun-god Ra, and she stands at the heart of the Egyptian conception of order, embodying the harmony of the cosmos, the justice of the law, and the truth of the individual life. Her name, maat, names both the goddess and the principle she personifies, the order that the creator established at the beginning against the chaos (isfet) that preceded and surrounds it, the rightness that holds the world together and that the king and every Egyptian were charged to uphold. She is depicted as a woman wearing on her head a single tall ostrich feather, the feather of Maat, which is her emblem and the symbol of the principle she embodies.

Maat's most famous role is in the judgment of the dead. In the Hall of Two Truths, the place of judgment in the afterlife, the heart of the deceased is weighed on a great balance against the feather of Maat, the emblem of truth and order. If the heart, the seat of the conscience and the record of the life, balances against the feather, the deceased has lived in accordance with Maat and is declared 'true of voice,' justified, and admitted to the blessed afterlife; if the heart is heavy with wrongdoing and outweighs the feather, it is devoured by the monster Ammit and the deceased suffers the second death, oblivion. This weighing of the heart against the feather of Maat, depicted in the Book of the Dead (Chapter 125) and rendered in countless funerary papyri, is among the central images of Egyptian religion, the measure of a life against the principle of truth and order.

Maat is the foundation of the cosmic, social, and moral order of Egypt. At the cosmic level, Maat is the order that the creator established at creation, the harmony of the heavens and the regular course of the sun, the order that holds the chaos at bay. At the social level, Maat is justice, the rightness of the law and of judgment, and the king ruled by Maat, charged to establish and uphold the order and justice of the realm; the offering of Maat, in which the king presents a small figure of the goddess to the gods, expressed the king's role as the upholder of order. At the moral level, Maat is truth and right conduct, the principle by which the individual was to live, expressed in the wisdom literature, such as the Instruction of Ptahhotep, as the right way of living that brings success and the favor of the gods. The goddess and the principle are inseparable: Maat the goddess is the personification of maat the order, and to live by Maat, to rule by Maat, and to be judged against Maat were the central concerns of Egyptian religion and ethics. Attested from the Pyramid Texts onward, Maat was worshipped throughout Egyptian history as the daughter of Ra and the foundation of the order of the world.

Mythology

The narrative of Maat is less a story than the unfolding of a principle, the order of truth and justice on which the Egyptian cosmos, society, and moral life were founded, personified as a goddess and present at the creation, the judgment of the dead, and the conduct of every life.

Maat stands at the beginning of the world. When the creator brought forth the ordered cosmos from the primordial chaos, he established Maat, the order, the rightness, the harmony that holds the world together against the chaos (isfet) that preceded and surrounds creation. Maat is the order that the creator set in place at the first dawn, the regular course of the sun, the harmony of the heavens, the rightness of the world. As the daughter of the sun-god Ra, Maat is bound to the creator and the solar order; she stands at the prow of the solar bark, and the sun-god is said to live by Maat, to be sustained by the order and truth that the goddess embodies. In some texts the gods themselves live on Maat, fed by the order and truth that is their sustenance. Maat is thus the principle of order at the foundation of the cosmos, established at creation and sustaining the world against the perpetual threat of chaos.

Maat governs the rule of the king. The pharaoh was charged above all to establish and uphold Maat, to maintain the order and justice of the realm against the chaos that threatens it. The king ruled by Maat, and his task was to keep the order of the cosmos and the society, to do justice, to maintain the regular round of the offerings to the gods, and to hold back the chaos. The offering of Maat, a ritual in which the king presents to the gods a small figure of the goddess, the feather or the seated figure of Maat, expressed this role: the king offers Maat to the gods, presenting the order he upholds, and the gods in turn sustain the king and the world. The presentation of Maat was among the central rituals of Egyptian kingship, the king's offering of the order he was charged to maintain.

Maat governs the judgment of the dead, and here the goddess and her principle take their most vivid mythological form. When an Egyptian died, the deceased passed to the Hall of Two Truths, the place of judgment, where the heart was weighed against the feather of Maat. The scene, depicted in the Book of the Dead and rendered in countless funerary papyri, shows the great balance with the heart of the deceased in one pan and the feather of Maat in the other; the jackal-god Anubis adjusts the balance, the ibis-headed Thoth records the result, and the monster Ammit, the Devourer, waits to consume the heart that fails. The deceased, standing before the balance, recites the Negative Confession, the declaration of innocence in which the dead person denies having committed the sins against Maat: I have not done wrong, I have not stolen, I have not killed, I have not lied, I have not committed the forty-two sins against the order of Maat. If the heart balances against the feather, the deceased is declared 'true of voice,' justified, having lived in accordance with Maat, and is admitted to the blessed afterlife; if the heart is heavy with wrongdoing and outweighs the feather, it is devoured by Ammit and the deceased suffers the second death, oblivion. The weighing of the heart against the feather of Maat is the measure of the life against the principle of truth and order, the judgment of whether the dead person lived by Maat.

The Hall of Two Truths takes its name from Maat, for the dual goddesses Maat, the Two Maats or the Two Truths, preside over the judgment, and the forty-two sins of the Negative Confession correspond to the forty-two divine judges and the forty-two nomes of Egypt. The whole judgment of the dead is a judgment against Maat, the measure of the life against the order and truth that the goddess embodies, and the goal of the deceased was to be found to have lived by Maat and so to be justified.

Maat governs the moral life of the individual. The wisdom literature of Egypt, the instructions in right living such as the Instruction of Ptahhotep, set out the way of Maat, the right conduct that brings success, the favor of the gods, and a justified life. To speak the truth, to do justice, to act rightly toward others, to maintain the order in one's own life and dealings, was to live by Maat, and the wise man was the one who followed the way of Maat. The opposite of Maat, the chaos and wrongdoing of isfet, was the way of ruin, the disorder that brings destruction. The moral life of the Egyptian was thus a life lived by Maat, the order and truth that the goddess embodies, and the judgment of the dead was the final measure of whether the life had been so lived.

The narrative of Maat is thus the unfolding of the principle of order through the cosmos, the kingship, the judgment of the dead, and the moral life, personified in the goddess with the feather, the daughter of the sun, who stands at the creation, the throne, the balance, and the conduct of every life. To live by Maat, to rule by Maat, and to be judged against Maat were the central concerns of Egyptian religion, and the goddess who embodies the order and truth of the world stands at the heart of the Egyptian conception of the cosmos and the moral life.

Symbols & Iconography

Maat's symbolism is the symbolism of order, truth, and justice, the principle of rightness on which the cosmos, the society, and the moral life of Egypt were founded. As the personification of maat, the order established at creation against the chaos of isfet, Maat embodies the harmony of the cosmos, the justice of the law, and the truth of the individual life, and her symbolism runs through the whole Egyptian conception of order at every level.

The ostrich feather is Maat's central symbol, the single tall feather she wears on her head and the emblem of the principle she embodies. The feather of Maat, light and perfect in its symmetry, is the measure of truth and order, the standard against which the heart of the dead is weighed in the judgment. The feather as the emblem of Maat renders the principle of order and truth in a single image, the light and balanced feather that the heart must match to be found true. The feather became the hieroglyph for maat and the universal symbol of the goddess and her principle.

The balance, the scales of the judgment, is Maat's symbol of justice and measure. The great balance of the Hall of Two Truths, with the heart in one pan and the feather of Maat in the other, renders the judgment of the life against the principle of truth and order, the weighing of the conduct against the standard of Maat. The balance symbolizes the exact measure of justice, the precise weighing of the life, and the principle that the moral life must balance against the order of Maat. The image of the balance with the heart and the feather is among the central symbols of Egyptian religion and a universal emblem of judgment and justice.

Maat's role at the cosmic level gives her a symbolism of the order of the universe. As the order established at creation, the harmony of the heavens and the regular course of the sun, Maat embodies the cosmic order that holds the chaos at bay, the rightness that the creator set in place against the disorder of isfet. Her plac

The feather as the emblem of Maat renders the principle of order and truth in a single image, the light and balanced feather that the heart must match to be found true. The image of the balance with the heart and the feather is among the central symbols of Egyptian religion and a universal emblem of judgment and justice.

Maat's role at the cosmic level gives her a symbolism of the order of the universe. Through these images Maat is at once the order of the cosmos, the justice of the law, the truth of the individual life, and the standard against which every life is judged, the feather and the balance that measure the rightness of the world and the conduct of every Egyptian. She is depicted as a woman wearing on her head a single tall ostrich feather, the feather of Maat, which is her emblem and the symbol of the principle she embodies.

Maat's most famous role is in the judgment of the dead. This weighing of the heart against the feather of Maat, depicted in the Book of the Dead (Chapter 125) and rendered in countless funerary papyri, is among the central images of Egyptian religion, the measure of a life against the principle of truth and order.

Maat is the foundation of the cosmic, social, and moral order of Egypt.

Worship Practices

The offering of Maat, the ritual in which the king presents a figure of the goddess to the gods, was among the central rituals of Egyptian kingship, expressing the king's task of maintaining the order he was charged to uphold. The maintenance of Maat in speech, in justice, and in conduct was the central moral concern of the Egyptian, and the wisdom literature was the guide to the way of Maat.

Maat was worshipped throughout Egyptian history as the daughter of Ra and the personification of order, and temples and chapels were dedicated to her, notably at Karnak, where a temple of Maat stood within the precinct of Montu, and the goddess appears throughout the religious texts and art of Egypt. Yet Maat's importance was less in an independent cult than in her pervasive presence at every level of Egyptian thought, as the principle of order that the king upholds, the standard against which the dead are judged, and the truth by which the individual lives. The conception of Maat, the order, truth, and justice on which the cosmos, the society, and the moral life rest, was among the most fundamental and pervasive ideas of Egyptian civilization, persisting across three thousand years from the Pyramid Texts to the temple inscriptions of the Greco-Roman period..

Sacred Texts

Pyramid Texts (c. 2375–2181 BCE; ed. R.O. Faulkner, Oxford, 1969; James P. Allen, SBL, 2005) contain the earliest attestations of Maat as a divine principle. Utterance 260 and related texts invoke the dead king's adherence to Maat as the condition of his acceptance by the gods, establishing the moral and cosmic dimensions of the goddess from the oldest period. Utterance 468 describes the solar bark as guided by Maat, placing the goddess at the prow of the sun-god's vessel as the principle of right order that guides the sun's course. Multiple utterances use the phrase 'living by Maat' as the standard of the gods' existence.

The Instruction of Ptahhotep (c. 2400–2200 BCE; principal text Papyrus Prisse, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris; trans. Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. I, UC Press, 1973, pp. 61–80) is the oldest surviving extended wisdom text and the key source for the ethics of Maat at the individual level. The text instructs in the way of Maat, the right conduct that brings success and the favor of the gods, and opens with a meditation on the good fortune of those who follow Maat. The Maxims of Ptahhotep are the primary document of Old Kingdom ethical thinking organized around the concept of maat.

Book of the Dead Spell 125 (New Kingdom onward; the Negative Confession; ed. R.O. Faulkner, BM Press, 1985) is the central source for the judgment of the dead against Maat. The spell comprises the declaration of innocence before the forty-two divine judges and a second declaration before Osiris, in which the deceased denies having committed the list of sins against Maat: 'I have not done wrong; I have not stolen; I have not killed.' The papyrus of Ani (BM EA 10470, c. 1275 BCE) includes the celebrated vignette of the weighing of the heart against the feather, with Anubis at the balance, Thoth recording, Ammit waiting, and Osiris enthroned; this is the standard illustrative rendering of the Maat judgment. The spell is fully translated and illustrated in Faulkner's edition.

The Instruction of Amenemope (c. 1200–1000 BCE; principal text Papyrus BM EA 10474, British Museum; trans. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. II, UC Press, 1976, pp. 146–163) extends the ethics of Maat into the New Kingdom, explicitly contrasting the 'silent man' who follows Maat with the 'hot-headed man' of isfet. This text is notable for its parallels with the biblical Book of Proverbs (Proverbs 22:17–24:22), suggesting the influence of Egyptian maat-ethics beyond Egypt.

The Memphite Theology (Shabaka Stone, c. 716–702 BCE; BM EA 498; trans. Lichtheim, vol. I, pp. 51–57) describes Ptah creating the world through heart (thought) and tongue (utterance) and the establishment of Maat and all things through the creative word; Maat appears here as one of the foundational principles established by the creator. Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride (Moralia V; Loeb, trans. F.C. Babbitt, 1936), chapters 3–4, discusses the Egyptian concept of divine truth and justice in connection with the Osirian tradition, providing the Greco-Roman perspective on the role of order and justice in Egyptian religion.

Significance

Maat's significance lies in her place at the foundation of Egyptian religion, ethics, and political ideology as the personification of order, truth, and justice, the principle of rightness on which the cosmos, the society, and the moral life of Egypt were understood to rest. The conception of maat, the order established at creation against the chaos of isfet, ran through the whole of Egyptian thought, and the goddess Maat was the personification of this principle, present at the creation, the throne, the judgment of the dead, and the conduct of every life. Maat is among the most fundamental conceptions of Egyptian civilization.

Maat matters above all for the Egyptian conception of order against chaos. As the order that the creator established at creation, the harmony of the cosmos that holds the chaos of isfet at bay, Maat embodies the rightness on which the working of the world depends, the order that must be maintained against the perpetual threat of disorder. This conception of the cosmos as an order maintained against chaos, with Maat as the principle of order, is fundamental to Egyptian thought, and the maintenance of Maat at every level, in the cosmos, the society, and the individual life, was the central concern of Egyptian religion.

Maat is significant for the Egyptian ideology of kingship. The pharaoh was charged above all to establish and uphold Maat, to maintain the order and justice of the realm against the chaos that threatens it, and the king's legitimacy rested on his role as the upholder of Maat. The offering of Maat, the ritual in which the king presents the goddess to the gods, expressed this role, and the administration of justice was understood as the maintenance of Maat in the society. Maat was thus the principle on which the legitimacy and the task of the Egyptian king rested.

Maat is significant for the Egyptian conception of moral judgment and the afterlife. The weighing of the heart against the feather of Maat in the Hall of Two Truths was the measure of the life against the principle of truth and order, the judgment of whether the deceased had lived by Maat, and the goal of the deceased was to be found justified, to have lived by Maat. This made Maat central to the Egyptian conception of moral responsibility and judgment after death, the measure of the soul against the order and truth of the world.

For the broader study of Egyptian religion and of the history of ideas, Maat is significant as the foundation of Egyptian ethics and the conception of cosmic and moral order, and as a distinctive contribution to the human understanding of order, truth, and justice. Her presence at every level of Egyptian thought, as the order the creator established, the principle the king upholds, the standard against which the dead are judged, and the truth by which the individual lives, made her among the most pervasive and fundamental figures of Egyptian religion. The goddess of truth and order, whose feather measures the heart of the dead and whose principle holds the world together, remains central to any understanding of Egyptian civilization and a touchstone for the comparative study of cosmic and moral order.

Connections

The weighing of the heart is the central scene in which Maat figures, the judgment of the dead in which the heart of the deceased is weighed on the great balance against the feather of Maat. If the heart balances against the feather, the deceased has lived by Maat and is justified; if it is heavy with wrongdoing, it is devoured. The weighing against the feather of Maat is the measure of the life against the principle of order and truth.

The Negative Confession is the declaration of innocence recited by the deceased in the Hall of Two Truths, the denial of the forty-two sins against Maat before the forty-two divine judges. The Negative Confession lists the wrongs against the order of Maat that the dead person denies having committed, and the goal is to be found to have lived by Maat.

The isfet entry addresses the chaos, falsehood, and wrongdoing that are the opposite of Maat, the disorder that Maat holds at bay. The opposition of Maat and isfet, order and chaos, truth and falsehood, right and wrong, runs through the whole Egyptian conception of the cosmos, the society, and the moral life.

The Ra entry covers the sun-god, Maat's father, by whose order the goddess is bound to the creator and the solar order, and who is said to live by Maat. The Thoth entry covers the god of writing and wisdom, closely associated with Maat in the judgment of the dead and the maintenance of order, in some traditions her consort.

The Ammit entry covers the Devourer who consumes the heart that fails to balance against the feather of Maat, and the Anubis entry covers the jackal-god who adjusts the balance in the weighing of the heart. The Osiris entry covers the god of the dead who presides over the Hall of Two Truths as the judge before whom the heart is weighed against the feather of Maat.

The Book of the Dead, especially Chapter 125, contains the scene of the weighing of the heart and the Negative Confession, the principal source for the judgment against Maat. The connections of Maat thus run through the whole Egyptian conception of order, from the creation and the solar order through the ideology of kingship to the judgment of the dead and the moral life, the goddess of truth and order present at every level of the Egyptian cosmos and the moral life.

Further Reading