In Egyptian afterlife judgment, what object was Anubis shown weighing against the deceased person's heart?

In Egyptian afterlife judgment, Anubis weighed the deceased person’s heart against the feather of Ma’at.

Ma’at represented truth, justice, order, balance, and the proper order of the cosmos. The heart was treated as the seat of a person’s character, memory, intentions, and moral record, so it was tested after death rather than discarded during mummification.

Funerary papyri often show Anubis operating or supervising the balance. If the heart balanced with the feather, the deceased could continue toward a blessed existence. The god Thoth recorded the result, while Osiris presided as ruler and judge of the dead.

The test was not a weighing of physical body weight. It was a symbolic moral judgment. If the heart failed, the monster Ammit consumed it, preventing the deceased from entering the ideal afterlife. The feather therefore represented a cosmic standard, not merely a household object.