Ammit in the context of "Nile crocodile"

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⭐ Core Definition: Ammit

Ammit (/ˈæmɪt/; Ancient Egyptian: ꜥm-mwt, "Devourer of the Dead"; also rendered Ammut or Ahemait) was an ancient Egyptian goddess 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. In ancient Egyptian religion, Ammit played an important role during the funerary ritual, the Judgment of the Dead.

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Ammit in the context of Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead is the name given to an ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom (around 1550 BC) to around 50 BC. "Book" is the closest term to describe the loose collection of texts consisting of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife and written by many priests over a period of about 1,000 years. In 1842, the Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius introduced for these texts the German name Todtenbuch (modern spelling Totenbuch), translated to English as 'Book of the Dead'. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw, is translated as Spells of Coming Forth by Day.

The Book of the Dead, which was placed in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased, was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were painted onto objects, not written on papyrus. Some of the spells included in the book were drawn from these older works and date to the 3rd millennium BC. Other spells were composed later in Egyptian history, dating to the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt (11th to 7th centuries BC). A number of the spells which make up the Book continued to be separately inscribed on tomb walls and sarcophagi, as the spells from which they originated always had been.

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Ammit in the context of Damnation

Damnation (from Latin damnatio) is the concept of divine punishment after death for sins that were committed, or in some cases, good actions not done, on Earth.

In Ancient Egyptian religious tradition, it was believed that citizens would recite the 42 negative confessions of Maat as their heart was weighed against the feather of truth. If the citizen's heart was heavier than the feather, it was said that it would be devoured by Ammit.

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Ammit in the context of Hunefer

Hunefer was a scribe during the 19th Dynasty (fl. c. 1300 BCE). He was the owner of the Papyrus of Hunefer, a copy of the funerary Egyptian Book of the Dead, which represents one of the classic examples of these texts, along with others such as the Papyrus of Ani.

Hunefer was "Scribe of Divine Offerings", "Overseer of Royal Cattle", and steward of Pharaoh Seti I.

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Ammit in the context of Duat

The Duat or Tuat (Ancient Egyptian: Hieroglyph: 𓇽 romanized: dwꜣt) is a concept in ancient Egyptian mythology involving death. It is most often seen as a realm where people go after they die. Due to linguistic shifts within Ancient Egypt, the Duat has also been called Te (Coptic: Ⲧⲏ, romanized: ) and Amenthes (Ancient Greek: Ἀμένθης, romanizedAménthēs).

What is known of the Duat derives principally from funerary texts such as the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns, the Coffin Texts, the Amduat, and the Book of the Dead, among many other sources. It is generally known best as a dark subterranean realm that not only houses the deceased, but a variety of deities. Common deities depicted in these texts are Osiris, Anubis, Thoth, Horus, and Maat in various forms. While all of these documents involve the Duat, each of them fulfilled a different purpose and depict the Duat in a variety of unique ways.

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Ammit in the context of Aaru

Aaru (/ɑːˈr/; Ancient Egyptian: jꜣrw, lit.'reeds'), or the Field of Reeds (sḫt-jꜣrw, sekhet-aaru), is the name for heavenly paradise in Egyptian mythology. Ruled over by Osiris, an Egyptian god, the location has been described as the ka of the Nile Delta.

Ancient Egyptians believed that the soul resided in the heart, and that each individual would therefore undergo a "Weighing of the Heart" in the afterlife; each human heart is weighed on a giant scale against an ostrich feather, which represents the concept of the goddess Maat. All souls that successfully balance the scales will be allowed to start a long and perilous journey to Aaru, where they will exist in peace and pleasure for eternity. Conversely, hearts that are heavy with evil will tumble from the scale pan and fall into the crocodilian jaws of the goddess Ammit. Any souls that are subject to Ammit's "second death" are doomed to restlessness in the Duat.

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