In ancient Egyptian religion, what object was a dead person’s heart weighed against in the afterlife?

In ancient Egyptian religion, a dead person’s heart was weighed against the feather of Ma’at in the afterlife. Ma’at represented truth, justice, order, and cosmic balance, so the ceremony tested whether the deceased had lived in harmony with those principles.

The scene is especially well known from funerary papyri, including the Papyrus of Ani. Anubis is commonly shown supervising the scales, while Thoth records the result. Osiris presides as ruler of the underworld, and the composite creature Ammit waits to devour a heart judged unworthy.

The heart had a special role in Egyptian thought because it was associated with memory, character, and moral identity. The feather is not the same object as an ankh or the Eye of Horus, both famous Egyptian symbols with different meanings. Egyptian beliefs changed over many centuries, so surviving texts do not represent one completely uniform system.