
Ammit
Ammit was a Primordial Beast in ancient Egyptian religion. Its titles included "Devourer of the Dead", "Eater of Hearts", and "Great of Death".
Description[]
Ammit is depicted with the forequarters of a lion, the hindquarters of a hippopotamus, and the head of a crocodile—the three largest "man-eating" animals known to ancient Egyptians.
Some scholars believe Ammit and the Lake of fire represent the same concept of destruction. Because of this, Ammit was not worshipped; instead, she embodied all that the Egyptians feared, threatening to bind them to eternal restlessness if they did not follow the principle of Ma'at.
Overview[]
Ammit lived near the scales of justice in Duat, the Ancient Egyptian Underworld. In the Hall of Two Truths, Anubis weighed the heart of a person against the feather of Ma'at, the goddess of truth, which was depicted as an ostrich feather (the feather was often pictured in Ma'at's headdress).
If the heart was judged to be not pure, Ammit would devour it, and the person undergoing judgment was not allowed to continue their voyage towards Osiris and immortality. Once Ammit swallowed the heart, the soul was believed to be obliterated for all time; this was called "to die a second time".
Ammit was also sometimes said to stand by the Lake of Fire. In some traditions, the unworthy hearts were cast into the fiery lake to be destroyed.