12 | Pectoral

This pectoral belongs to a type of jewellery that was usually placed on the chest of a mummified individual.

Its gilded wood is carved and inlaid with glass, featuring a scene with 2 kneeling figures framing a stone scarab, above which is a now missing circular sun disc.

Notice the seat-like hieroglyph on the head of the figure to the left?

This is the symbol and the name of the goddess ‘Aset’ or Isis.

The figure on the right has on her head a hieroglyphic sign that combines a dish on top of a 3-legged stand.

In ancient Egyptian this would read ‘Nebethet', the name we now know as Nephthys.

Isis and Nephthys were sister goddesses of healing and magic, believed to protect the deceased.

They raise their hands in adoration of the sun and the scarab – symbol of the rising sun – and of creation and rebirth.

But the scarab here has another important function in representing the heart of the deceased.

The heart, like the name, was an important element of an ancient Egyptian person.

In the way we consider the brain today to be the most complex and dynamic part of the human body, the Egyptians believed the heart embodied an individual’s memory, knowledge and intelligence.

For this reason, the heart would remember all the experiences of a person’s life and bear witness to those experiences after death.

In the New Kingdom, it was believed that after death an individual would enter the Hall of Maat, or of Truth.

Here, they would be judged in front of a divine tribunal of 42 deities over whom presided none other than Osiris, god of the underworld.

This momentous event would determine whether they could enter and be granted eternal life.

And the one thing that guaranteed this was their heart, to be weighed against the feather of Maat.

The deceased would recite 42 declarations of innocence and if no lie was detected, the heart would balance with the feather, the deceased would be declared ‘true of voice’ and could enter the realm of Osiris.

If the heart found the deceased was lying, it would weigh heavy against the feather and the deceased would be devoured by a terrifying creature named Ammit, ‘the gobbler’.

This demon could have the head of a crocodile, the front legs and body of a lion or leopard and the hind legs of a hippopotamus.

When Ammit ate the heart, the person would cease to exist.

Several spells were written in the Book of the Dead to prevent this terrible outcome.

If you look at the back of the heart scarab on the pectoral, you will find that it is inscribed with parts of such a spell.

Coupled with the scarab’s symbolic representation of rebirth, as well as the protector goddesses close by, this pectoral would help ensure the deceased entered a new existence in the realm of Osiris.