Ma'at

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Goddess Ma'at[1]
in hieroglyphs
U5
D42		 X1
Y1
Z2		 I12

 
U5
D42
X1		 H6C10Y1Z3

 
H6X1
H8		 C10

Ma'at, reconstructed to have been pronounced as *Muʔʕat (Muh-aht),[2] was the Ancient Egyptian concept of law, morality, and justice[3] which was deified as a goddess.[4] Ma'at was seen as being charged with regulating the stars, seasons, and the actions of both mortals and gods.[5] As a goddess, her masculine counterpart was Thoth and their attributes go hand in hand.[6] Like Thoth,[7] she was seen to represent the Logos of Plato.[8] Her primary role in Egyptian mythology dealt with the weighing of words that took place in the underworld, Duat.[9]

Ma'at in an Egyptian Context

As an Egyptian deity, Ma'at belonged to a complex religious, mythological and cosmological belief system developed in the Nile river basin from earliest prehistory to 525 B.C.E.[10] Indeed, it was during this relatively late period in Egyptian cultural development, a time when they first felt their beliefs threatened by foreigners, that many of their myths, legends and religious beliefs were first recorded.[11] The cults within this framework, whose beliefs comprise the myths we have before us, were generally fairly localized phenomena, with different deities having the place of honor in different communities.[12] Despite this apparently unlimited diversity, however, the gods (unlike those in many other pantheons) were relatively ill-defined. As Frankfort notes, “the Egyptian gods are imperfect as individuals. If we compare two of them … we find, not two personages, but two sets of functions and emblems. … The hymns and prayers addressed to these gods differ only in the epithets and attributes used. There is no hint that the hymns were addressed to individuals differing in character.”[13] One reason for this was the undeniable fact that the Egyptian gods were seen as utterly immanental—they represented (and were continuous with) particular, discrete elements of the natural world.[14] Thus, those who did develop characters and mythologies were generally quite portable, as they could retain their discrete forms without interfering with the various cults already in practice elsewhere. Also, this flexibility was what permitted the development of multipartite cults (i.e. the cult of Amun-Re, which unified the domains of Amun and Re), as the spheres of influence of these various deities were often complimentary.[15]

The worldview engendered by ancient Egyptian religion was uniquely appropriate to (and defined by) the geographical and calendrical realities of its believer’s lives. Unlike the beliefs of the Hebrews, Mesopotamians and others within their cultural sphere, the Egyptians viewed both history and cosmology as being well ordered, cyclical and dependable. As a result, all changes were interpreted as either inconsequential deviations from the cosmic plan or cyclical transformations required by it.[16] The major result of this perspective, in terms of the religious imagination, was to reduce the relevance of the present, as the entirety of history (when conceived of cyclically) was ultimately defined during the creation of the cosmos. The only other aporia in such an understanding is death, which seems to present a radical break with continuity. To maintain the integrity of this worldview, an intricate system of practices and beliefs (including the extensive mythic geographies of the afterlife, texts providing moral guidance (for this life and the next) and rituals designed to facilitate the transportation into the afterlife) was developed, whose primary purpose was to emphasize the unending continuation of existence.[17] Given these two cultural foci, it is understandable that the tales recorded within this mythological corpus tend to be either creation accounts or depictions of the world of the dead and of the gods place within it.

Ma'at as a goddess

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The goddess Maat

The goddess Ma'at is the personification of physical and moral law, order, and truth[18] represented as a woman, sitting or standing, holding a sceptre in one hand and an ankh in the other. Sometimes she is depicted with wings on each arm or a woman with an ostrich feather for a head.[19]

Because it was the pharaoh's duty to ensure truth and justice, many of them were referred to as Meri-Ma'at (Beloved of Ma'at). Since she was considered as merely the concept of order and truth, it was thought that she came into existence at the moment of creation, having no creator. When beliefs about Thoth arose and started to consume the earlier beliefs at Hermopolis about the Ogdoad, it was said that she was the mother of the Ogdoad and Thoth the father.

In Duat, the Egyptian underworld, the hearts of the dead were said to be weighed against the single Shu feather, symbolically representing the concept of Ma'at, in the Hall of Two Truths. A heart which was unworthy was devoured by Ammit and its owner condemned to remain in Duat. Those people with good, (and pure), hearts were sent on to Osiris in Aaru. The weighing of the heart, pictured on papyrus, (in the Book of the Dead, typically, or in tomb scenes, etc.), shows Anubis overseeing the weighing, the "lion-like" Ammit seated awaiting the results and the eating of the heart, the vertical heart on one flat surface of the balance scale, and the vertical Shu-feather standing on the other balance scale surface. Other traditions hold that Anubis brought the soul before the posthumous Osiris who performed the actual weighing.

Ma'at was commonly depicted in art as a woman with outstretched wings and a "curved" ostrich feather on her head or sometimes just as a feather. These images are on some sarcophagi as a symbol of protection for the souls of the dead. Egyptians believed that without Ma'at there would be only the primal chaos, ending the world. It was seen as the Pharaoh's necessity to apply just law.

Ma'at as a principle

Ma'at as a principle was at least partially codified into a set of laws, and expressed a ubiquitous concept of right from wrong characterized by concepts of truth and a respect for and adherence to a divine order believed to be set forth at the time of the world's creation. This divine order was primarily conceived of as being modeled in various environmental/agricultural and social relationships. It somewhat resembles the underlying concepts of Taoism and Confucianism at times. Many of these concepts were codified into laws, and many of the concepts were often discussed by ancient Egyptian philosophers and officials who referenced the spiritual text known as the Book of the Dead. Later scholars and philosophers would also embody concepts from the Wisdom Literature, or seboyet.[20] These spiritual texts dealt with common social or professional situations and how each was best to be resolved or addressed in the spirit of ma'at- it was very practical advice, and highly case-based, so that few specific and general rules could be derived from them. During the Greek period, Greek law existed alongside that of the Egyptian law, but usually these laws favored the Greeks. When the Romans took control of Egypt, the Roman legal system which existed throughout the Roman empire was imposed in Egypt. In addition to the importance of the ma'at, several other principles within Ancient Egyptian law were essential, including an adherence to tradition as opposed to change, the importance of rhetorical skill, and the significance of achieving impartiality and social equality. Thus, "to the Egyptian mind, Ma'at bound all things together in an indestructible unity: the universe, the natural world, the state and the individual were all seen as parts of the wider order generated by Ma'at.

One aspect of ancient Egyptian funerary literature which is often mistaken for a codified ethic of ma'at is Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead, often called the 42 Declarations of Purity or the Negative Confession. These declarations actually varied somewhat from tomb to tomb, and so can not be considered a canonical definition of ma'at. They appear rather to express each tomb owner's individual conception of ma'at, as well as working as a magical absolution (misdeeds or mistakes made by the tomb owner in life could be declared as not having been done, and through the power of the written word wipe that particular misdeed from his or her afterlife record). Many of the lines are similar, however, and they can help to give the student a "flavor" for the sorts of things which ma'at governed (which was basically everything- from the most formal to the most mundane aspect of life). Many versions are given online, unfortunately seldom do they ever note the tomb from which they came or whether they are a collection from various different tombs. Generally, they are each addressed to a specific deity, described in his or her most fearsome aspect. Ahmed Osman might believe the Book of the Dead preceded the Ten Commandments.[citation needed]

The doctrine of Ma'at is represented in the declarations to Rekhti-merti-f-ent-Ma'at and the 42 negative affirmations listed in the Papyrus of Ani:

Declarations to Rekhti-merti-f-ent-Ma'at

Verily I have come to thee, I have brought to thee Ma'at.
1. I have driven away for thee wickedness.
2. I have not done iniquity to mankind.
3. Not have I done harm unto animals.
4. Not have I done wickedness in the place of Ma'at.
5. Not have I known evil.
6. Not have I acted wickedly.
7. Not have I done each day and every works above what I should do.
8. Not hath come forth my name to the boat of the Prince.
9. Not have I despised God.
10. Not have I caused misery.
11. Not have I caused affliction.
12. Not have I done what is abominable to God.
13. Not have I caused harm to be done to the servant by his chief.
14. Not have I caused pain.
15. Not have I made to weep.
16. Not have I killed.
17. Not have I made the order for killing for me.
18. Not have I done harm to mankind.
19. Not have I taken aught of the oblations in the temples.
20. Not have I purloined the cakes of the gods.
21. Not have I carried off the offerings of the blessed dead.
22. Not have I fornicated.
23. Not have I defiled myself.
24. Not have I added to, not have I diminished the offerings.
25. Not have I stolen from the orchard.
26. Not have I trampled down the fields.
27. I have not added to the weight of the balance.
28. Not have I diminished from the weight of the balance.
29. Not have I carried off the milk from the mouth of the babe.
30. Not have I driven away the cattle which were upon their pastures.
31. Not have I captured the birds of the preserves of the gods.
32. Not have I taken the fishes [with bait] of their own bodies.
33. Not have I turned back water at its season.
34. Not have I cut a cutting in water running.
35. Not have I extinguished a flame at its hour.
36. Not have I violated the times for the chosen offerings.
37. Not have I driven back the cattle of divine things.
38. I have not repulsed God in his manifestations.
I, even I, am pure. Times four.[21]

42 Negative Confessions

1. Not have I done wrong.
2. Not have I despoiled.
3. Not have I robbed.
4. Not have I slain men: twice.
5. Not have I defrauded the offerings.
6. Not have I diminished [oblations].
7. Not have I despoiled the things of the god.
8. Not have I spoken lies.
9. Not have I carried off food.
10. Not have I afflicted [any]
11. Not have I committed fornication.
12. Not have I made to weep.
13. Not have I eaten my heart.
14. Not have I transgressed.
15. Not have I acted deceitfully.
16. Not have I desolated ploughed lands.
17. Not have I been an eavesdropper.
18. Not have I set my mouth in motion [against any man].
19. Not have I raged except with a cause.
20. Not have I defiled the wife of a man.
21. Not have I defiled the wife of a man.
22. Not have I polluted myself.
23. Not have I caused terror.
24. Not have I committed offense
25. Not have I inflamed myself with rage.
26. Not have I made deaf myself to the words of right and truth.
27. Not have I caused grief.
28. Not have I acted insolently.
29. Not have I stirred up strife.
30. Not have I judged hastily.
31. Not have I been an eavesdropper.
32. Not have I multiplied my words upon words.
33. Not have I harmed, not have I done evil.
34. Not have I made curses of the king.
35. Not have I fouled water.
36. Not have I made haughty my voice.
37. Not have I have I cursed God.
38. Not have I committed theft.
39. Not have I defrauded the offerings of the gods.
40. Not have I carried away offerings from the beatified ones.
41. Not have I carried off the food of the infant, not have I sinned against the god of the town.
42. Not have I slaughtered the cattle divine.[22]

Notes

  1. ↑ Heiroglyphs can be found in Collier and Manley (27, 29, 154). Some additional variants exist, so we have chosen to follow Budge's (1969) listing of the most common ones (Vol. I, 416).
  2. ↑ Information taken from phonetic symbols for Ma'at, and explanations on how to pronounce based upon modern reals, revealed in (Collier and Manley pp. 2-4, 154)
  3. ↑ (Budge The Gods of the Egyptians Vol. 1 p. 417)
  4. ↑ (Budge The Gods of the Egyptians Vol. 1 p. 418)
  5. ↑ (Strudwick p. 106)
  6. ↑ (Budge The Gods of the Egyptians Vol. 1 p. 400)
  7. ↑ (Budge The Gods of the Egyptians Vol. 1 p. 407)
  8. ↑ http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/EGYPT/MAAT.HTM
  9. ↑ (Budge The Gods of the Egyptians Vol. 1 p. 418)
  10. ↑ This particular "cut-off" date has been chosen because it corresponds to the Persian conquest of the kingdom, which marks the end of its existence as a discrete and (relatively) circumscribed cultural sphere. Indeed, as this period also saw an influx of immigrants from Greece, it was also at this point that the Hellenization of Egyptian religion began. While some scholars suggest that even when "these beliefs became remodeled by contact with Greece, in essentials they remained what they had always been" (Erman, 203), it still seems reasonable to address these traditions, as far as is possible, within their own cultural milieu.
  11. ↑ The numerous inscriptions, stelae and papyri that resulted from this sudden stress on historical posterity provide much of the evidence used by modern archeologists and Egyptologists to approach the ancient Egyptian tradition (Pinch, 31-32).
  12. ↑ These local groupings often contained a particular number of deities and were often constructed around the incontestably primary character of a creator god (Meeks and Meeks-Favard, 34-37).
  13. ↑ Frankfort, 25-26.
  14. ↑ Zivie-Coche, 40-41; Frankfort, 23, 28-29.
  15. ↑ Frankfort, 20-21.
  16. ↑ Assmann, 73-80; Zivie-Coche, 65-67; Breasted argues that one source of this cyclical timeline was the dependable yearly fluctuations of the Nile (8, 22-24).
  17. ↑ Frankfort, 117-124; Zivie-Coche, 154-166.
  18. ↑ (Budge The Gods of the Egyptians Vol. 1 p. 417)
  19. ↑ Budge The Gods of the Egyptians Vol. 1 p. 416)
  20. ↑ See Russ VerSteeg, Law in Ancient Egypt 19 (Carolina Academic Press 2002)
  21. ↑ (Budge The Egyptian Book of the Dead pp. 194 - 8) The text is exact, but numbers are added. Budge is in the public domain.
  22. ↑ (Budge The Egyptian Book of the Dead pp. 198 - 203) The text has been modified, keeping Budge's numbering but removing the "Hail, insert name," at the beginning of the declarations. Repeated statements are made to two different entities.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Assmann, Jan. In search for God in ancient Egypt. Translated by David Lorton. Ithica: Cornell University Press, 2001. ISBN 0801487293.
  • Breasted, James Henry. Development of religion and thought in ancient Egypt. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. ISBN 0812210454.
  • Budge, E. A. Wallis (translator). The Egyptian Book of the Dead. 1895. Accessed at sacred-texts.com.
  • Budge, E. A. Wallis (translator). The Egyptian Heaven and Hell. 1905. Accessed at [www.sacred-texts.com/egy/ehh.htm sacred-texts.com].
  • Budge, E. A. Wallis. The gods of the Egyptians; or, Studies in Egyptian mythology. A Study in Two Volumes. New York: Dover Publications, 1969.
  • Budge, E. A. Wallis (translator). Legends of the Gods: The Egyptian texts. 1912. Accessed at sacred-texts.com.
  • Budge, E. A. Wallis (translator). The Rosetta Stone. 1893, 1905. Accessed at sacred-texts.com.
  • Collier, Mark and Manly, Bill. How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: Revised Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. ISBN 0520239490.
  • Dunand, Françoise and Zivie-Coche, Christiane. Gods and men in Egypt: 3000 B.C.E. to 395 C.E.. Translated from the French by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. ISBN 080144165X.
  • Erman, Adolf. A handbook of Egyptian religion. Translated by A. S. Griffith. London: Archibald Constable, 1907.
  • Frankfort, Henri. Ancient Egyptian Religion. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961. ISBN 0061300772.
  • Griffith, F. Ll. and Thompson, Herbert (translators). The Leyden Papyrus. 1904. Accessed at sacred-texts.com.
  • Mancini, Anna. Ma'at Revealed: Philosophy of Justice in Ancient Egypt. New York: Buenos Books America, 2004. ISBN 1932848290.
  • Meeks, Dimitri and Meeks-Favard, Christine. Daily life of the Egyptian gods. Translated from the French by G.M. Goshgarian. Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, 1996. ISBN 0801431158.
  • Mercer, Samuel A. B. (translator). The Pyramid Texts. 1952. Accessed online at [www.sacred-texts.com/egy/pyt/index.htm sacred-texts.com].
  • Pinch, Geraldine. Handbook of Egyptian mythology. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2002. ISBN 1576072428.
  • Shafer, Byron E. (editor). Temples of ancient Egypt. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. ISBN 0801433991.
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  • Wilkinson, Richard H. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames and Hudson, 2003. ISBN 0500051208.

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