There were also sky divinities, and these were all feminine. Nu was the
blue mid-day sky, while Neit was the dark sky of night. Hathor or Athor,
the "Queen of Love," the Egyptian Venus, represented the evening sky.
There were other deities and objects of worship not so easily classified.
Hapi was the personification of the river Nile. Anubis, the jackal-headed
deity, was the friend and guardian of the souls of good men. Thmei or Ma,
the goddess of truth, introduced departed souls into the hall of judgment.
Amenti, the great western desert, in course of time was applied to the
unknown world beyond the desert. Through the wilderness of Amenti departed
spirits had to pass on their way to the judgment hall. In this desert were
four evil spirits, enemies of the human soul, who endeavoured to delude
the journeying spirits by drawing them aside from the way that led to the
abode of the gods. On many papyri, and on the walls of tombs, scenes of
the final judgment are frequently depicted. Horus is seen conducting the
departed spirits to the regions of Amenti; a monstrous dog, resembling
Cerberus of classic fable, is guardian of the judgment hall. Near to the
gates stand the dreadful scales of justice. On one side of the scales
stands Thoth, the recorder of human actions, with a tablet in his hand,
ready to make a record of the sentence passed on each soul. Anubis is the
director of the weights; in one scale he places the heart of the deceased,
and in the other a figure of the goddess of truth. If on being weighed the
heart is found wanting, then Osiris, the judge of the dead, lowers his
sceptre in token of condemnation, and pronounces judgment against the
soul, condemned to return to earth under the form of a pig. Whereupon the
soul is placed in a boat and conveyed through Amenti under charge of two
monkeys. If the deeds done in the flesh entitle the soul to enter the
mansions of the blest, then Horus, taking the tablet from Thoth,
introduces the good spirit into the presence of Osiris, who, with crook
and flagellum in his hands, and attended by his sister Isis, with
overspreading wings, sits on a throne rising from the midst of the waters.
The approved soul is then admitted to the mansions of the blest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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