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    Maat & Isft

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    Noso
    Maat was the Egyptian goddess of truth, justice, order, and balance. She was the daughter of Ra, the sun god, and traveled with him in his sun barque. Maintaining maat was the most important duty of Egyptian kings, who were responsible for defeating isfet (chaos) and upholding justice, order, and righteousness. In the afterlife, the dead were judged in the Hall of Two Truths, where their hearts were weighed against Maat's feather; if their hearts were as light as her feather, they were justified and could continue to the afterlife. Maat represented the basic principles that upheld Egyptian society and was central to Egyptian religion for much of its history.

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    Maat & Isft

    Uploaded by

    Noso
    387 views4 pages
    Maat was the Egyptian goddess of truth, justice, order, and balance. She was the daughter of Ra, the sun god, and traveled with him in his sun barque. Maintaining maat was the most important duty of Egyptian kings, who were responsible for defeating isfet (chaos) and upholding justice, order, and righteousness. In the afterlife, the dead were judged in the Hall of Two Truths, where their hearts were weighed against Maat's feather; if their hearts were as light as her feather, they were justified and could continue to the afterlife. Maat represented the basic principles that upheld Egyptian society and was central to Egyptian religion for much of its history.

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    Maat was the Egyptian goddess of truth, justice, order, and balance. She was the daughter of Ra, the sun god, and traveled with him in his sun barque. Maintaining maat was the most important duty of Egyptian kings, who were responsible for defeating isfet (chaos) and upholding justice, order, and righteousness. In the afterlife, the dead were judged in the Hall of Two Truths, where their hearts were weighed against Maat's feather; if their hearts were as light as her feather, they were justified and could continue to the afterlife. Maat represented the basic principles that upheld Egyptian society and was central to Egyptian religion for much of its history.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    387 views4 pages

    Maat & Isft

    Uploaded by

    Noso
    Maat was the Egyptian goddess of truth, justice, order, and balance. She was the daughter of Ra, the sun god, and traveled with him in his sun barque. Maintaining maat was the most important duty of Egyptian kings, who were responsible for defeating isfet (chaos) and upholding justice, order, and righteousness. In the afterlife, the dead were judged in the Hall of Two Truths, where their hearts were weighed against Maat's feather; if their hearts were as light as her feather, they were justified and could continue to the afterlife. Maat represented the basic principles that upheld Egyptian society and was central to Egyptian religion for much of its history.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    Maat

    The divine of order, truth, and justice. Maat, absent from the chaos before
    the act of creation, was the base of all being, constantly under attack by the
    forces of chaos such as the Apepi snake trying to destroy Re on his course
    through the underworld. In the spiritual realm it was the gods fighting evil
    demons, who constantly restored order, in this world it was the pharaoh who
    upheld it, by dispensing justice, protecting the weak, and defending the land
    of the gods against lawless foreigners.
    In the Pyramid Texts of Unas there is mention of Wish-of-the-gods, who is
    in the bow of Re's bark [1], which has been interpreted by some to denote
    Maat. In the course of history Maat became the daughter of Re. Maat's
    symbol is a feather. It is with the weight of this feather that the heart of the
    deceased is compared to during the Judgment of the Dead. Should the heart
    be weighed down with sin, should the magic of the heart scarab placed over
    it to prevent the heart from bearing witness against its owner be of no avail,
    and should the protestations of innocence not be believed, then the dead
    person's heart will be devoured by the demon Ammit and he will not have
    part in the eternal life.

    Isfet
    Isfet was the personification of chaos, evil and injustice. It was the
    opposite of Maat, and it was the task of the pharaohs to defend Maat and
    defeat Isfet.
    Isfet was the primordial Chaos, consisting of the waters of Nun. Order
    came into being with the act of creation, the self-impregnation of Atem in
    the Heliopolitan tradition and the birth of Shu and Tefnut.
    Isfet continued to be part of the cosmos. At first only Egypt was exempted
    from it, but later adjoining, and finally far-off countries became part of the
    ordered world as well.
    Isfet was also the evil in a person's heart, and anybody interested in taking
    part in the afterlife had to make sure, not to be burdened with it. In the
    Papyrus of Nu there is a charm for becoming a great one of the
    (otherworldly) court of justice:
    MAAT (MAET)
    The word maat can mean truth, justice, righteousness, order,
    balance, and cosmic law. The goddess Maat was the beloved
    daughter of Ra, the creator sun god. She traveled with him in
    the sun barque, delighting his heart and giving life to his
    nostrils. The primary duty of an Egyptian king was to be the
    champion of maat. In the afterlife, the dead were judged on
    whether they had done and spoken maat.
    From the Old Kingdom onward, Maats presence was thought
    to be vital to the daily regeneration of the sun god. In
    Underworld Books she is often shown standing close to Ra in
    both the Day and Night Boats of the sun. This, or the dual
    nature of Egypt as two kingdoms, may explain why Maat can
    appear as two identical goddesses.

    Maat shares her feather emblem with the air god Shu. She
    was sometimes equated with Shus sister, Tefnut. The gods
    were said to live on maat, and the goddess was identified
    with the basics of life: air to breathe, bread to eat, and beer
    to drink. From the fourteenth century BCE onward, Maat was
    often shown as a winged goddess.
    Like Isis, she could revive the dead with the air generated
    by her beating wings. Another emblem of Maat was a plinth
    sign that was used in the writing of her name. Such plinths
    are shown below the thrones of deities who act as divine
    judges. This depiction has been interpreted as a symbol that
    maat was the base on which Egyptian society was built.

    Kings were frequently shown offering a miniature figure of


    Maat to the chief deity of a temple. All the daily rituals and
    sacrifices would be deemed meaningless unless the king and
    his people were living righteous lives. Judges and high
    officials wore images of the goddess to signify that they were
    enforcing her laws.
    Maat was often linked with Thoth, the impartial judge, who
    was said to have put the laws of maat into writing. This gave
    a divine precedent for the many works of Egyptian literature
    that teach or debate how to live in maat in the real world.
    Egyptian myths of a golden age included a period when Maat
    was ruler of earth. She was sometimes said to have
    withdrawn to the heavens because she was grieved by the
    wicked behavior of humanity. Maat could still be thought of
    as living with an individual like his or her good angel and
    accompanying that person into the afterlife. Eventually
    joining Maat became a euphemism for dying.
    In the Book of the Dead, the Hall of the Two Truths (or the
    Double Maat)
    is the place where the souls of the dead come to be judged.
    The hearts of the
    dead were weighed against the feather of Maat, and her
    image sometimes surmounts the scales. If, like Ra, the dead
    person had Maat in his or her heart, the scales would
    balance and the deceased would be declared true of voice
    or justified (see Figure 7).
    A hymn from the time when Egypt was occupied by the
    Persians evokes the beautiful face of Maat shining from the
    heart of Ra. The goddess is urged to reside in the tongue and
    the head of the Persian king, so that he will do maat. During
    the Greco-Roman Period, Maat seems to have lost her
    central place in Egyptian religion, and some of her functions
    were taken over by Isis.

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