Oil on Panel

13″ x 13″

In the ancient Egyptian religion, Ammit is the deity associated with judgment and is known as “The Devourer”.  She is often depicted with the forequarters of a lion, the hindquarters of a hippopotamus, and the head of a crocodile. These were the three largest “man-eating” animals known to ancient Egyptians.

In the Hall of Two Truths, Anubis weighs the heart of a person against the feather of Ma’at, the goddess of truth. If the heart is judged to be impure, Ammit will devour it, and the person undergoing judgment is not allowed to continue their voyage towards Osiris and immortality.

When creating the concept for this piece the image of a machine kept coming to me. I started to think of Ammit’s function to be an inexorable force of nature, who consumed the impurity of  souls to fire the engine of the universe. The digested souls would be returned to the chthonic waters of the underworld.