Maat as a Goddess

Maat was the goddess of musical harmony, justice, and truth stood for as a young woman, sitting or regular, holding a was verge, the symbol of power, in one hand and an ankh, the symbol of enduring life, in the other. Sometimes she is depicted with wings on each arm or as a woman with an ostrich feather on her head. Depictions of Maat as a goddess are shown from as early as the middle of the Old Kingdom (2680-2190 BCE). The sun-god Ra came from the primaeval mound of creation merely afterward he set his daughter Maat in place of Isfet (chaos). Kings hereditary the duty to ensure Maat stayed in place and they with Ra are said to "live on Maat", with Akhenaten (1372-1355 BCE) in particular emphasizing the concept to a degree that, John D. Ray asserts, the kings generations  viewed  as  intolerance  and  fanatism. Some  kings  organized  Maat  into  their  names,  being concerned to as Lords of Maat, or Meri-Maat (Beloved of Maat). When beliefs about Thoth arose in the Egyptian pantheon and started to take the earlier beliefs at Hermopolis about the Ogdoad, it was said that she was the mother of the Ogdoad and Thoth the father.

In the Duat, the Egyptian underworld, the hearts of the dead were said to be weighed against her single "Plume of Ma'at", symbolically representing the concept of Maat, in the Hall of Two Truths. A heart which was unworthy was downed  by  the  goddess Ammit  and  its  owner  decried  to  remain  in  the  Duat.  The  heart  was  seen  the position of the soul by ancient Egyptians. Those people with good and pure hearts were directed on to Aaru. Osiris came to be seen as the defender of the gates of Aaru after he become part of the Egyptian pantheon and moved Anubis in the Ogdoad custom.

The pressing of the heart, pictured on papyrus in the Book of the Dead typically, or in tomb pictures, shows Anubis superintending the pressing and the lioness Ammit seated awaiting the issues so she could occupy those who failed. The image would be the vertical heart on one flat surface of the balance ordered series and the vertical Shu-feather rearing on the other proportion scale rise. Other traditions hold that Anubis brought the soul before the posthumous Osiris who did the weighing.

Goddess Maat and Scribes

Scribes held prestigious positions in ancient Egyptian society in view of their grandness in the transmission of religious, political and cheap information. Thoth was the patron of scribes who is discovered as the one "who breaks Maat and reckons Maat; who beds Maat and gives Maat to the doer of Maat". In texts such as the Teaching of Amenemope the scribe is recommended to come the precepts of Maat in his individual life as well as his work. The exhortations to live according to Maat are such that these forms of instructional texts have been represented as (Maat Literature).

Goddess Maat and the Law

Feather of truth
appear with
Goddess Maat

There is little living literature that reports the exercise of ancient Egyptian law. Maat was the spirit in which jurist  was  applied  rather  than  the  detailed  legalistic  exposition  of  rules  (as  found  in  Mosaic  law  of  the  1st millenary BCE). Maat was the norm and basic values that formed the background for the coating of justice that had to be implemented in the spirit of truth and loveliness. From the fifth dynasty (2510-2370 BCE) onwards the Vizier responsible for justice was addressed the Priest of Maat and in later periods tries wore images of Maat. Later  scholars  and  philosophers  also  would  be  concepts  from  the  wisdom  literature,  or  Sebayt. These weird texts dealt with standard social or professional positions and how each was best to be resolved or named in the spirit of Maat. It was very real advice, and extremely case-based, so that few specific and general feels could be derived from them.

Through the Greek period in Egypt history, Greek law existed alongside Egyptian law. The Egyptian law continued  the rights of women who were granted to act independently of men and own substantial individual property and in  time this influenced the more restrictive convening of the Greeks and Romans. When the Romans taken charge of Egypt, the Roman legal system which existed throughout the Roman Empire was indispensable in Egypt.