Entering the land of the dead Amenti

Entering the land of the dead Amenti

After the deceased has rejected their sins, their soul is accompanied by either Thoth or Anubis and taken to Osiris, who allows the deceased to enter the Amenti. Just for good measure, demon Ammut stands alongside the scales. Ammut is a horrible crocodileheaded goddess whose body is a combination of a hippopotamus, a lion and a leopard. The meaning of her name is “the one who devours”. Ammut would devour the heart of the one who would not be judged as a righteous man, which automatically meant dying a second death: a soul that did not possess a heart could not live in the astral world of Duat.

Even after entering the Duat, many demons revon the heart of the deceased wishing to wrest and eat it. That is why the heart is protected by numerous spells and magical utterances. Some of those are found in chapters 27 and 28 of the Book of the Dead.