What is maat in ancient Egypt?
Maat is the ancient Egyptian concept of truth, justice, cosmic order, and balance. Personified as a goddess with an ostrich feather, maat was the foundational principle of Egyptian civilization — the pharaoh's primary duty was to uphold it, and every person's heart was weighed against it after death.
Maat was far more than a religious concept — it was the organizing principle of ancient Egyptian civilization for over three thousand years. Encompassing truth, justice, order, balance, and cosmic harmony, maat described how the universe was supposed to work and how every person, from pharaoh to peasant, was supposed to behave.
Personified as a goddess wearing an ostrich feather on her head, Maat was less a deity to be worshipped and more a universal principle to be maintained. The Egyptians believed that the world existed in a constant tension between maat (order) and isfet (chaos). Without active effort to maintain maat, the world would descend into disorder.
The pharaoh bore the primary responsibility for upholding maat. This meant governing justly, performing proper rituals, defending Egypt from external threats, and ensuring the prosperity of the land and its people. Every official derived their authority from this mandate. Legal judgments were framed not as the application of human laws but as the restoration of maat.
Maat extended beyond governance into the afterlife. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the deceased's heart is weighed against the feather of maat. A heart lighter than the feather — meaning a life lived in accordance with truth and justice — earned passage to the eternal afterlife. A heavier heart was devoured by the monster Ammit. This moral framework gave every Egyptian a personal stake in maintaining maat throughout their life.