Ammit
Egyptian · deity · mythic · deity
Ammit is the other outcome. The weighing of the heart is one of the most reproduced images in Egyptian art and it is usually shown going well — the heart balances the feather, Thoth writes it down, the deceased is led in to Osiris. Ammit is what the picture is for: she is drawn in every version, sitting beside the balance, built out of the three animals an Egyptian had most reason to fear, and if the heart is heavy she eats it. There is no hell in this system and no sentence to serve. Being eaten is simply the end of you, permanently, which is why the Book of the Dead spends so much of its length on spells to prevent it.
Domains
- judgement
Powers
- to end a person entirely by eating the heart
Relations
- subordinate to: Osiris
Sources
- Book of the Dead, spell 125.
- Reference treatments of Ammit and of the weighing of the heart.