The Scales of Ma'at
The great balance set up in the Hall of Two Truths (or Hall of Ma'at), where the heart of the dead was weighed against the feather of truth before Osiris, with Thoth recording the verdict and the devourer Ammit waiting to swallow any heart found heavier than the feather. Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead describes the rite, in which the deceased recites the Negative Confession before the Forty-Two Judges. The scene, painted on tomb walls and funerary papyri from the New Kingdom onward, is among the most reproduced images of Egyptian religion. Because the heart (ib) was held to record the dee