From the time of the Twelfth Dynasty(36) onwards, the place of the material heart in the mummy was taken by an amulet, through the influence of which, it was supposed, the corpse would be secured against all the dangers and inconveniences attending the loss of its heart until the day of resurrection. The amulet was in the form of a beetle or scarab, the emblem of “becoming” or transformation, and on the under side of it there was often inscribed the 30th chapter of the Book of the Dead, to the words of which were ascribed a magical effect. The chapter reads as follows: “O heart (_ab_) of my mother, O heart (_ḥati_) of my transformations! Let there be no stoppage to me as regards evidence (before the judges of the dead), no hindrance to me on the part of the Powers, no repulse of me in the presence of the guardian of the scales! Thou art my Ka in my body, the god Khnum who makes strong my limbs. Come thou to the good place to which we are going. Let not our name be overthrown by the lords of Hades who cause men to stand upright! Good unto us, yea good is it to hear that the heart is large (and heavy) when the words (of life) are weighed!(37) Let no lies be uttered against me before God. How great art thou!” Meanwhile the immaterial heart, the “Ka” of it, which is addressed in the words just quoted, had made its way through the region of the other world, until it finally reached the place known as “the Abode of Hearts.” Here in the judgment-hall of Osiris it met the dead man to whom it had formerly belonged, and here, too, it accused him of all the evil words and thoughts he had harboured in his lifetime, or testified to the good thoughts and words of which he had been the author. For the heart, though the organ through which his thoughts and words had acted, was not the cause of them; in its nature it was essentially pure and divine, and it had been an unwilling witness of the sins it had been forced to know. Eventually it was weighed in the balance against the image of Truth, and only if the scales turned in favour of the dead man could it rejoin its former body and live with it for ever in the islands of the Blest.