Chapter 10 (part 10)

There is no one word which will exactly describe the Egyptian conception of Maat both from a physical and from a moral point of view; but the fundamental idea of the word is " straight," and from the Egyptian texts it is clear that maat meant right, true, truth, real, genuine, upright, righteous, just, steadfast, unalterable, etc. Thus already in the Prisse papyrus it is said, "Great is maat , the mighty and unalterable, and it hath never been broken since the time of Osiris," and Ptah-hetep counsels his listener to "make maat , or right and truth, to germinate." The just, upright, and straight man is maat and in a book of moral precepts it is said, "God will judge the right ( maa ) ###. Maat, the goddess of the unalterable laws of heaven, and the daughter of Ra, is depicted in female form, with the feather emblematic of maat , on her head, or with the feather alone for a head, and the sceptre in one hand, and {an ankh} in the other. In the judgment scene two Maat goddesses appear; one probably is the personification of physical law, and the other of moral rectitude. Het-heru , or Hathor the "house of Horus," was the goddess of the sky wherein Horus the sun-god rose and set. Subsequently a great number of goddesses of the same name were developed from her, and these were identified with Isis, Neith, Iusaset, and many other goddesses whose attributes they absorbed. A group of seven Hathors is also mentioned, and these appear to have partaken of the nature of good fairies. In one form Hathor was the goddess of love, beauty, [1. Page 17, 1. 5, ###. 2 Page 18, l. 1, ###. 3. Amélineau, la Morale , p. 138. 4. The various meanings of maat are illustrated by abundant passages from Egyptian texts by Brugsch, Wörterbuch (Suppl.), p. 329. 5. See Lanzone, op. cit. tav. 109.] happiness; and the Greeks identified her with their own Aphrodite. She is often depicted in the form of a woman having disk and horns upon her head, and at times she has the head of a lion surmounted by a uræus. Often she has the form of a cow--the animal sacred to her--and in this form she appears as the goddess of the tomb or Ta-sertet, and she provides meat and drink for the deceased. Meht-urt is the personification of that part of the sky wherein the sun rises, and also of that part of it in which he takes his daily course; she is depicted in the form of a cow, along the body of which the two barks of the sun are seen sailing. Already in the pyramid texts we find the attribute of judge ascribed to Meh-urt, and down to a very late date the judgment of the deceased in the hall of double Maat in the presence of Thoth and the other gods was believed to take place in the abode of Meh-urt. Net or Neith , "the divine mother, the lady of heaven, the mistress of the gods," was one of the most ancient deities of Egypt, and in the pyramid texts she appears as the mother of Sebek. Like Meh-urt she personifies the place in the sky where the sun rises. In one form she was the goddess of the loom and shuttle, and also of the chase; in this aspect she was identified by the Greeks with Athene.