Editing Duat (section)

==== Housing of Souls/ Afterlife ====
{{Further|Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs|}}
In order to receive judgement the dead journeyed through the various parts of the Duat to be judged. If the deceased was successfully able to pass various challenges, then they would reach the ''Judgment of the dead''. In this ritual, the deceased's first task was to correctly address each of the forty-two [[Assessors of Maat]] by name, while reciting the sins they did not commit during their lifetime.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Coogan |first1=Michael D. |title=A Reader of Ancient Near Eastern Texts: Sources for the Study of the Old Testament,"Negative Confessions" |date=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |pages=149–150}}</ref> After confirming that they were sinless, the heart of the deceased was weighed by [[Anubis]] against the feather of [[Maat]], which represents truth and justice. Any heart that is heavier than the feather failed the test, and was rejected and eaten by [[Ammit]], the devourer of souls, as these people were denied existence after death in the Duat. The souls that were lighter than the feather would pass this most important test, and would be allowed to travel to Aaru.

The ''Duat'' is not equivalent to the conceptions of [[Hell]] in the [[Abrahamic religions]], in which souls are condemned with fiery torment. The absolute punishment for the wicked, in ancient Egyptian thought, was the denial of an afterlife to the deceased, ceasing to exist in the intellectual form seen through the devouring of the heart by Ammit.<ref name="Pinch-1994-Magic" />