Forty-two judges, known as the Assessors of Ma’at, sit in the Hall of Two Truths during the judgment of the dead.
The scene is described most fully in Spell 125 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The deceased enters the afterlife tribunal and addresses the assessors individually, naming each one while reciting a series of “negative confessions”—statements declaring that particular wrongs were not committed during life.
The number 42 is traditionally associated with the 42 assessors and the 42 declarations of innocence. Each assessor is linked in the texts with a name, a place of origin, and a specific offense. Although the judges are often said to represent Egypt’s 42 nomes, that interpretation is a modern scholarly explanation rather than an explicit statement found in every ancient source.
The tribunal also includes Osiris, ruler of the dead, and Anubis, who oversees the weighing of the heart. The heart is balanced against the feather of Ma’at, the principle and goddess of truth, justice, and cosmic order. If it fails the test, the monster Ammit devours it.