Ammit | |||||||
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Name in hieroglyphs | Egyptian: ꜥm-mwt[1]
(devourer of the dead)
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Ammit (/ˈæmɪt/; Ancient Egyptian: ꜥm-mwt, "Devourer of the Dead"; also rendered Ammut or Ahemait) was a goddess in ancient Egyptian religion 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.
Ammit (Ancient Egyptian: ꜥm-mwt; Ʒmt mwtw[2]) literally means 'devourer of the dead"[3][1] ('Devoureress of the Dead'[4][6]) or 'Swallower of the Dead',[2] where ꜥm is the verb 'to swallow',[7] and mwt signifies 'the dead', more specifically the dead who had been adjudged not to belong to the akhu 'blessed dead' who abided by the code of truth (ma'at).[3][a]
Ammit is a creature sometimes depicted as attending the Judgment of the SoulJudgment of the Dead) before Osiris, Chapter 125 of Book of the Dead.[9][2] Osiris presided over the judgment as the ruler of Duat, the Egyptian underworld, in the depictions during the New Kingdom[c][3][10] and judgment took place in the Hall of the Two Truths (or Two Maats).[3] Anubis, the Guardian of the Scales, conducted the dead towards the weighing instrument,[12] so that the heart of the dead can be weighed against the feather[d] of Ma'at, the goddess of truth.[3][10][11]
(If the heart was judged to be impure, 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 become restless forever; this was called "to die a second time".[2][9][13]
Thus Ammit is often depicted sitting in a crouched posture near the scale, ready to eat the heart.[9][10] However, the Book of the Dead served as both guide and guarantee, so that the dead buried with it always succeeded in the trial, leaving Ammit ever-hungry, and the consecrated dead was then able to bypass the Lake of Fire of Chapter 126.[2]
Ammit/Ammut is denoted a female entity, commonly depicted with the head of a crocodile, the forelegs and upper body of a lion (or leopard[4][5][15]), and the hind legs and lower body of a hippopotamus.[5] She is part lioness[16] according to her gender, but her leonine feature may present in the form of a mane,[17][18] which is usually associated with male lions.[19] In some examples, Ammit is seen as having a mane resembling a wig,[20] and in the Papyrus of Ami (See image right) she is adorned with the tricolored nemes (wig cover)[10] worn by the pharaohs.
The Ammit/Ammut of the crocodile-lion-hippopotamus hybrid variety was the conventional type during the New Kingdom of Egypt (18th to 20th dynasties), during which she may or may not have appeared in the scene of the judgment of the dead soul before Osiris (Chapter/Spell 125) of the Book of the Dead, also painted on tomb walls besides funerary papyri.[9] Later a stylistic shift occurred, and Ammit/Ammut took on a different form bearing a hippopotamus-like head, and a dog-like body with rows of paps (breasts) or nipples,[9][21] for example on the coffin lid of the chief Ankhhor (22nd century),[9] as it became common to paint the heart-weighing scene on the insides of coffins (21st century), and later on the exterior.[9][24][21]
The combination of these three deadly predators (crocodile, lion, hippo) suggests that no evil soul can escape Ammit's annihilation.[4] Ammit has also been depicted with other Egyptian gods weighing the heart of a person after they have passed, and this is where the destiny of a person is decided.[25] If a person is deemed evil, Ammit will destroy the heart and the person is annihilated.[4]
Saba Mubarak portrays Ammit in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) television series Moon Knight (2022).[26] In the Mummies Alive! cartoon series, the main villain Scarab accidentally summons Ammut, and she sticks around. In the show, she is a dog-like and rather small sized pet who does not speak. In Rick Riordan’s series, the Kane Chronicles, Ammit is portrayed. In Primeval Ammit was a Pristichampsus that came through a Anomaly a gateway in time to ancient Egypt and ancient Egyptians believed they were gods.