ammut

Ammut, also spelled Ammit or Amemet, is an ancient Egyptian mythological figure associated with the afterlife. She is typically depicted as a composite creature with the head of a crocodile, the body of a hippopotamus, and the hindquarters of a lion. Known as the Devourer of the Dead, Ammut functions as a symbol of divine punishment rather than as a benevolent guardian.

In Egyptian belief, the heart of the deceased was weighed against the feather of Ma'at, the goddess of truth and order, in the Hall of Two Truths under the judgment of Osiris with the help of Anubis. If the heart was light and pure, the soul could proceed to the afterlife. If the heart bore the weight of sin, Ammut would devour it, preventing the deceased from attaining immortality. This act signified the denial of eternal life and, in some depictions, the “second death.”

Ammut is not consistently portrayed as a central god but rather as a mythic figure tied to the judgment process. She appears in various papyri and tomb inscriptions from different periods of ancient Egypt, reinforcing the moral dimension of the afterlife in which ethical conduct and adherence to Ma'at were crucial for success in the afterlife.

Her iconography and role helped standardize the concept that moral failure in life had immediate consequences in the afterlife, reinforcing a core aspect of ancient Egyptian religion: the weighing of the heart as a determinant of eternal fate.