Creator

Maat

mꜣꜥt

TruthCosmic orderJustice

How it changed

Less a personality than a principle: the order that holds the cosmos, the state and the individual together. A king's central duty was to uphold maat against isfet, disorder. In the judgement of the dead it is her feather the heart is weighed against.

Cult centre

Worshipped throughout Egypt rather than centred anywhere

Best attested

Old Kingdom onward

Family

Daughter of Ra.

Epithets

“Daughter of Ra”
“Lady of the judgement hall”

How to recognise the figure

A woman with an ostrich feather on her head, or the feather alone.

Appears in

c. 1550 BCE onward, Spell 125 of the Book of the Dead

The weighing of the heart

A heart on one pan, a feather on the other, and forty-two judges who each have to be addressed by name.

Carries

The feather of Maat

Others in this group

Thoth

Hermopolis

Amun

Thebes

Ptah

Memphis

Atum

Heliopolis