Maat – Ancient Egypt’s Most Important Religious Concept

A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - Maat represented the most essential religious concept of the Egyptian view of the world. It was a concept of order of the world that the gods, pharaohs, and ordinary people had to obey.

Maat wearing the feather of truth. Image credit: Lunazagor - Public Domain

Maat was the Harmony or Law of the Universe. The lack of Maat and her departure meant an inevitable return to the original chaos (Nu) and the end of the known world.

Goddess Maat Was A Symbol Of Balance, Truth, Justice And Wisdom

Like many Egyptian deities with a human form, Maat was an abstract goddess of great symbolic importance. For example, Maat was responsible for the balance between the gods and people and between the two sexes.

As previously noted in Ancient Pages, the equal rights enjoyed by both men and women in ancient Egypt can be attributed to Egyptian cosmology and the Goddess Maat.

Ancient Egyptians viewed the Universe as a complete duality of male and female. A mutual relationship between gods and goddesses existed when the Universe was born. We wrote in our earlier article that female gods were just as important as male gods.

Egyptian goddess Maat Ma'at (Mayet) also symbolized wisdom, truth, and justice. Maat gods were considered judges or other essential state officials representing the laws of being, truth, and universal order.

However, the highest priest was always the Pharaoh himself.

Depictions of Maat as a goddess began to appear as early as the middle of the Old Kingdom (c. 2680 to 2190 BC) and showed Maat as a woman sitting or standing and holding the scepter in one hand and the ankh in the other. An ostrich feather (her emblem) often decorated the goddess's head. This feather's meaning was probably "lightness and good deeds."

Demon Ammit And The "Weighing Of The Heart" Ceremony

The heart of Hunefer weighed against the feather of Maat. This is an excellent example of one of the many fine vignettes (illustrations) from the Book of the Dead of Hunefer. Image source - British Museum - Public Domain

In the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, this feather played an essential role during the final judgment. People believed that before entering the afterlife, the deceased were expected to deny all the evil deeds they might have committed in their lifetime.

So, they appeared before the goddess of truth, Maat, to go through this confrontation.

During the "Weighing of the Heart" ceremony, the feather's lightweight was used as a counterweight to the human heart, which was believed to be - the cornerstone of the soul.

More Myths And Legends

Ammit ("Eater of Hearts") was a female demon and goddess with a body that was a combination of lion and hippopotamus, and her head was that of a crocodile. Ammit, who resided in the Hall of Ma'at, always awaited the ceremony's end and judgment for the departed and deceased souls. If the heart was heavier than the feather, this person's number of evil deeds was too big, and Ammit would consume the soul (Ba).

However, if the heart was lighter than the feather of Maat, or its weight was equal, the soul could live on in the afterlife, help Osiris, the god of the afterlife, in judgment, associate with other souls, or even return to earth periodically to visit some places the person had loved in life.

Some of the 42 Judges of Maat are visible, seated and in small size. Maat's feather of truth depicted in the bottom right corner. British Museum, London. Image credit: Soutekh67 - CC BY-SA 3.0

The Pharaoh Was Responsible For Maintenance Of The Maat System

The cult of the goddess Maat has been known practically since the beginning of the Egyptian religion. It was connected with the norms and laws of Egyptian society and regulated the relationship between Pharaoh and his people.

The most important task of the pharaohs was to maintain the world's order, and a special ritual was performed in all temples to honor Maat.

The Pharaoh was responsible for guaranteeing the world order, establishing rights, and caring for the country and its people. In a way, the Pharaoh symbolized the maintenance of the Maat system, which sometimes was seriously threatened.

In 1650 B.C., Egypt was invaded by a group of foreigners who called themselves Hyksos. As we wrote in one of our articles on Ancient Pages, the Hyksos people established a mighty empire in large parts of ancient Egypt. This Hyksos Empire lasted over 100 years and seriously disturbed the Maat order.

Finally, the pharaoh Kamose, the last king of the Theban Seventeenth Dynasty, liberated the country from the Hyksos. Then, it was publicly announced that the goddess Maat had returned, and the world was no longer in danger.

It is worth noting that according to these ancient Egyptian beliefs, every wicked act and each misuse of the world's order could permanently corrupt the Maat.

The Maat system became vulnerable, which, in consequence, could lead to the end of the world much sooner.

As we mentioned in another of our articles, it is also interesting to note that the Ten Commandments are very similar to the 42 Principles of Maat that appeared at least 2,000 earlier. There is reason to seriously consider at least 8 of the Christian Ten Commandments were based on Ma'at (or Maat), an ancient ethical and moral principle that every Egyptian citizen was expected to follow throughout their daily lives.

Written by – A. Sutherland AncientPages.com Staff Writer

Updated on February 25, 2024

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