In ancient Egyptian mythology, Ammut feasts on the heart of someone judged unworthy of eternal life. The creature’s name is also commonly spelled Ammit or Ahemait.
Ammut appears in the judgment of the dead, where a deceased person's heart was weighed against the feather of Ma'at, the principle of truth, justice, and cosmic order. If the heart was heavier than the feather, it represented a life morally out of balance, and Ammut would devour it.
This fate was worse than an ordinary death because the person would be denied a blessed afterlife. Ammut was therefore associated with annihilation and divine punishment rather than with a conventional underworld ruler. Anubis is linked to the weighing ceremony, while Osiris serves as judge in many depictions.
Ammut's hybrid body combines the forequarters of a lion, the hindquarters of a hippopotamus, and the head of a crocodile. These were among ancient Egypt's most dangerous animals, making the monster a vivid embodiment of punishment. The story is especially known from funerary texts and illustrations in the Book of the Dead.