Ammit

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Ammit / Ammut in hieroglyphics
New kingdom
D36
Aa15
Aa15 		M17 M17 X1

Late period
D36 G17 M17 M17 F27

Ammit / Ammyt
ˁmmjt
The eater
New kingdom
D36
G17
X1 		Aa15
X1 		G5 A14
Z2

D36
Aa15 		F10 X1 G17 F27

D36 G3 Aa15 M17 M17 X1 F27

Ammut / Ametmut (Amet mut)
ˁmt mwt (w)
The devourer of the dead
Ammit.svg
Ammit as "crocodile-lion-hippopotamus"
( vignettes of the dead book in private graves)
Detail ritual bed of the Ammit from Tutankhamun's tomb
( Egyptian Museum Cairo , JE 62012)

Ammit (also Ammut ) has been documented as the ancient Egyptian goddess of the hereafter since the 18th Dynasty ( New Kingdom ). Their role in ancient Egyptian mythology is closely related to protecting the king ( pharaoh ). She was regarded as the "consort of Osiris " who fended off his and the royal enemies. Ammit's mythological roots go back to the Old Kingdom in connection with the judgment of the dead , where the king had to be protected from the negative forces of Seth during the trial in order to be able to ascend heaven as " justified Osiris" .

In the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead , Ammit was also taken into account after the Amarna period ; there, however, in the function of "demonic eater" and helper of Osiris, who ate the "hearts of his enemies" due to the convicted "lie of the heart". The tradition of the Book of the Dead ended in the Ptolemaic period , which explains the lack of evidence for Ammit in the further course of the Greco-Roman period .

Meaning and iconography

Only in the underworld book Amduat is Ammit's depiction as a goddess in "stick figure form". This special form is due to the fact that the editors of the Amduat used older templates that probably go back to the Old Kingdom. Jan Assmann therefore assigns the theme of the amduat to the sun shrines . Alexandra von Lieven refers to similar images in the 6th Dynasty in connection with the “stick figure shape” . In the course of the New Kingdom, the scribes replaced those drawings with artistically more sophisticated new creations due to damaged templates.

Books of the afterlife and royal tombs

In all royal graves the vignette of the Book of the Dead verse 125, which illustrates the swaying of the heart , is missing . Associated with this, there are no images of Ammit as a “demonic corpse eater”. The reasons can be seen in the self-image of the king ( Pharaoh ), who carries and symbolizes the principle of mate . Therefore, the kings in their graves adapted the content of the texts to the Maat principle, in particular to the effect that the king did not have to make a “ negative confession of guilt ”. In contrast to the Book of the Dead 125, in the depictions of the royal tombs, the king's justification sequence was omitted . The judges of the dead generally acquitted him of personal misconduct on the basis of the Maat principle.

Ammit is therefore shown in the royal tombs exclusively as a human goddess and thus functioned as the patron goddess of the deceased king. In one out of the grave of Tutankhamun originating inscription on a hippo -Bahre states: "The king is loved by her." In the cave book , Ammit appeared as a goddess standing in an oval under which four meat symbols were attached. With another goddess she guarded the secret sarcophagus in the 11th cave . In the Amduat , Ammit is depicted in the royal tombs as a standing goddess with a uraeus snake on her head. In the area of Wernes she belongs in the upper register as the second goddess to a group of nine gods of the second night hour . In the Crypt Book she can be seen as a standing goddess under a canopy . Ammit holds a snake as a scepter, which also functions as the front pole of the canopy. In addition, she is attested as a goddess with a serpent placed vertically in front of her. In the early Ptolemaic period, Ammit is documented as the goddess of the 10th hour in a book of hours.

Egyptian Book of the Dead, private graves and private coffins

Ammit as "dead eater"
(Papyrus Hunefer, 19th dynasty )

In Proverb 125 of the Book of the Dead, Ammit is not mentioned by name until the end of the Amarna period . It was only after the reign of the "heretic kings" that ancient Egyptian scribes illustrated the content with Ammit as the "dead eater". Even if their iconography appears strange as a hybrid creature , Ammit represents the largest and most dangerous animals in Egypt outside the books of the afterlife and the royal tombs . There are also similar beings who were called “bone breakers” or “intestines devourers”. Since the 21st dynasty she has been represented with teats and referred to as a sow. This probably served to reduce their dangerousness.

Ammit is called in the grave of Djehutiemhab ( TT194 ), grave of Siamun and coffin CG 61031 "Dead Eater". Probably the best-known representation of the goddess is an illustration of the Book of the Dead 125 regarding the judgment of the dead , where she can be seen as a hybrid being with the head of a crocodile , the front body of a lion and the rear part of a hippopotamus . There she waits next to the scales in the “ Hall of Complete Truth ”, where the heart of the deceased is weighed against the pen of the mate . In the event that the deceased did not pass the test of the negative confession of guilt , the heart weighed heavier than the pen of the Maat and Ammit devoured the heart of the deceased. The ba of the deceased was therefore no longer able to unite with the corpse, which made it impossible to continue living in Sechet-iaru . In grave TT341 , Ammit is shown in another hybrid variant with the front body of a crocodile and the rear part of a hippopotamus.

cult

The goddess enjoyed no formal cult. Even if your name begins with the determinative
R8
was written for deity, she was considered in the Book of the Dead as a demonic being whose power had to be overcome. Her name refers to her function at the judgment of the dead , where, for example, in the theology of the Book of the Dead , she ate those hearts of the deceased who did not pass the negative confession of guilt. The eaten souls of these so-called “unjustified” people no longer existed due to the destruction.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Ammit  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Christine Seeber: Investigations into the representation of the judgment of the dead in ancient Egypt. Pp. 127-128.
  2. ↑ Friedrich Abitz: Pharaoh as God in the underworld books of the New Kingdom . P. 193.
  3. ↑ Horst Beinlich, Mohamed Saleh: Corpus of hieroglyphic inscriptions from the tomb of Tutankhamun: With the concordance of the numbering systems of the "Journal d'entrée" of the Egyptian Museum Cairo, the handlist to Howard Carter's Catalog of objects in Tutankhamūns tomb and the exhibition number of the Cairo Egyptian Museum . Griffith Institute, Oxford 1989, ISBN 0-900416-53-X , p. 137.
  4. ↑ a b c d Christian Leitz u. a .: LGG, Vol. 2 . Pp. 114-115.
  5. ↑ The second night hour of the Amduat has been preserved in the following royal tombs: Thutmose I. , Thutmose III. , Amenhotep II. , Amenhotep III. , Seti I. , Ramses II. , Set II. , Ramses V , Ramses VI. and Ramses IX.
  6. ↑ Ammit in the Amduat as a standing goddess with a uraeus snake on her head (8th goddess from the left, upper register).
  7. ↑ Rolf Felde: Egyptian gods. Wiesbaden 1995, pp. 16-17.
  8. ↑ 19th Dynasty.
  9. ↑ Late Period 4–3. Century BC Chr.
  10. ↑ Christine Seeber: Judgment of the Dead . Pp. 167-168.
  11. ↑ TT 341 from the 20th Dynasty .
  12. ↑ Rolf Felde: Egyptian gods. Wiesbaden 1995, p. 16.