Assessors of Maat
The Assessors of Maat were 42 minor ancient Egyptian deities of the Maat charged with judging the souls of the dead in the afterlife by joining the judgment of Osiris in the Weighing of the Heart.
Description
Negative Confessions and psychostasia
The very long Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead lists names and provenances of the Assessors of Maat. A declaration of innocence corresponds to each deity: it is pronounced by the dead himself, to avoid being damned for specific "sins" that each of the 42 Judges is in charge of punishing.The deceased was accompanied in the presence of Osiris by the psychopomp god Anubis — where he would have declared that he was guilty of none of the "42 sins" against justice and truth by reciting a text known as "Negative confessions". The heart of the deceased was then weighed on a two-plate scale: a plate for the heart, the other for the feather of Maat. Maat, in whose name the 42 judges who flanked Osiris acted, was the deification of truth, justice, rectitude and order of the cosmos and was often symbolized by an ostrich feather. If the heart and the feather were equal, then the deities were convinced of the rectitude of the deceased, who could therefore access eternal life becoming , which means "vindicated / justified", literally "true of voice". But, if the heart was heavier than Maat's feather, then a terrifying monster named "the Devourer" devoured it by destroying the soul of the deceased.
The psychostasia episode is remarkable not only for its symbolic and even dramatic vivacity, but also because it is one of the few parts of the Book of the Dead with moral connotations. The judgment by Osiris and by the other 42 judicial deities, and the "Negative Confessions" themselves, depict the ethics and morality of the Egyptians. These 42 declarations of innocence were interpreted by some as possible historical precedents of the Ten Commandments: but, while the Ten Commandments of Judeo-Christian ethics consist of norms attributed to a divine revelation, the "Negative confessions" seem rather as divine transpositions of daily morality.
List of names, provenances and tasks (Wilkinson)
The American egyptologist Richard Herbert Wilkinson thus inventoried, in his The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, the 42 Assessors of Maat:| Name of the deity | Identified with | Sin | Name of the deity | Identified with | Sin | ||
| 1 | "Far-Strider" | Heliopolis | falsehood | 22 | "Demolisher" | Xois | transgressing |
| 2 | "Fire-Embracer" | Kheraha | robbery | 23 | "Disturber" | Weryt | being hot-tempered |
| 3 | "Nosey" | Hermopolis | rapaciousness | 24 | "Youth" | Heliopolitan nome | unhearing of truth |
| 4 | "Swallower of Shades" | "the cavern" | stealing | 25 | "Foreteller" | Wenes | making disturbance |
| 5 | "Dangerous One" | Rosetau | murder | 26 | "You of the Altar" | "the secret place" | hoodwinking |
| 6 | "Double Lion" | "the sky" | destruction of food | 27 | "Face Behind Him" | "cavern of wrong" | copulating with a boy |
| 7 | "Fiery Eyes" | Letopolis | crookedness | 28 | "Hot-Foot" | "the dusk" | neglect |
| 8 | "Flame" | "came forth backwards" | stealing offerings | 29 | "You of the Darkness" | "the darkness" | quarrelling |
| 9 | "Bone Breaker" | Heracleopolis | lying | 30 | "Bringer of Your Offerings" | Sais | unduly active |
| 10 | "Green of Flame" | Memphis | taking food | 31 | "Owner of Faces" | Nedjefet | impatience |
| 11 | "You of the Cavern" | "the West" | sullenness | 32 | "Accuser" | Wetjenet | damaging a god's image |
| 12 | "White of Teeth" | Faiyum | transgression | 33 | "Owner of Horns" | Asyut | volubility of speech |
| 13 | "Blood-Eater" | "the shambles" | killing a sacred bull | 34 | Nefertem | Memphis | wrongdoing |
| 14 | "Eater of Entrails" | "House of Thirty" | perjury | 35 | Temsep | Busiris | conjuration against the king |
| 15 | "Lord of Truth" | Maaty | stealing bread | 36 | "You Who Acted Willfully" | Tjebu | wading in water |
| 16 | "Wanderer" | Bubastis | eavesdropping | 37 | "Water-Smiter" | "the abyss" | being loud voiced |
| 17 | "Pale One" | Heliopolis | babbling | 38 | "Commander of Mankind" | "your house" | reviling God |
| 18 | "Doubly Evil" | Andjet | disputing | 39 | "Bestower of Good" | the Harpoon Nome | doing... ? |
| 19 | "Wememty-Snake" | "place of execution" | adultery | 40 | "Bestower of Powers" | "the city" | making distinctions for self |
| 20 | "See Whom You Bring" | "House of Min" | misbehaviour | 41 | "Serpent With Raised Head" | "the cavern" | dishonest wealth |
| 21 | "Over the Old One" | Imau | terrorizing | 42 | "Serpent Who Brings and Gives" | "the silent land" | blasphemy |