Egyptian Gallery Weighing of the heart, Egyptian Book of the Dead (tactile)
Synopsis
This is a mural painted onto the plaster board wall of the Egyptian Gallery and is 39 cm high by 42 cm wide.This oblong panel is rather like a cartoon and shows the story of the weighing of the heart ceremony from the dead person kneeling before judges to being presented to Osiris, the god of the underworld. It is taken from a book of the dead.
The story starts in the upper left-hand corner of the panel with the dead person, represented as a man in a short black wig and wearing an ankle-length pleated robe open to the waist showing his bare chest, kneels before a panel of 14 judges who are seated in a long row facing him. He holds his hands up towards the judges as they consider the things he has done during his life. The ankh, the key of life, appears in the hands of some of the judges.
After the judgement, the story continues in the bottom left-hand corner of the panel with the dead person, holding the right hand of the jackal-headed god Anubis in human form, is led towards a large set of balance scales on which his heart will be weighed against the feather of Ma'at. Anubis holds an ankh in his left hand and wears a knee-length kilt.
The balance scales are shaped like a capital letter 'T' - an upright pole with a pole balancing across it with two scale pans on long ropes at each end. On the left scale pan, in a small pot, is the dead person's heart. On the right scale pan is the feather of truth. Anubis knees on a small stool to the left of the base of the scales and has his left arm extended as he is adjusting the balance arm of the scale to get the correct measurement. To the right of the base of the scales stands Ammut, the god with the head of a crocodile, the front legs and body of a lion with long mane and the back legs of a hippo. Ammut has his head turned to the right to look at Toth, the ibis-headed god of wisdom in human form, who stands facing the scales recording the results. If the results were bad, Ammut would then devour the heart, condemning the dead person to oblivion for eternity.
The story continues as the results were good and the dead person's heart weighed less than the feather and so he could progress into the afterlife. He is shown being presented to Osiris by Horus, the falcon-headed god in human form. Horus holds his right hand up towards Osiris and holds an ankh in his left hand. He wears a similar kilt to Anubis.
Osiris is sitting on a throne surrounded by a very ornate canopy. Under the throne, a representation of the Nile is shown - blue with dark blue zigzag lines in similar to the Nile in the Khnum image - and shown growing from this is a large lotus flower that has four figures standing on it. Osiris is shown like a mummy wrapped in white with a tall white crown on his head. He holds the symbols of Egyptian kings in his hands: the shepherd's crook and the flail. Behind him, standing side by side at the far right of the panel, is his wife Isis and her sister Nephthys. They are dressed in long, figure-hugging robes, long black wigs and conical headdresses. Together, Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys welcome the dead person to the underworld. Facing Osiris and the two ladies, in the top left-hand corner of the canopy are the two open wings holding a feather on a pole. The story is completed by hieroglyphic text that runs in columns above each of the scenes.