In the underworld, and in that portion of it which is called the Hall of Ma[=a]ti, is set a balance wherein the heart of the deceased is to be weighed.  The beam is suspended by a ring upon a projection from the standard of the balance made in the form of the feather which is the symbol of Ma[=a]t, or what is right and true.  The tongue of the balance is fixed to the beam, and when this is exactly level, the tongue is as straight as the standard; if either end of the beam inclines downwards the tongue cannot remain in a perpendicular position.  It must be distinctly understood that the heart which was weighed in the one scale was not expected to make the weight which was in the other to kick the beam, for all that was asked or required of the deceased was that his heart should balance exactly the symbol of the law.  The standard was sometimes surmounted by a human head wearing the feather of Ma[=a]t; sometimes by the head of a jackal, the animal sacred to Anubis; and sometimes by the head of an ibis, the bird sacred to Thoth; in the Papyrus of Ani a dog-headed ape, the associate of Thoth, sits on the top of the standard.  In some papyri (e.g., those of Ani [Footnote:  About B.C. 1500.] and Hunefer [Footnote:  About B.C. 1370.]), in addition to Osiris, the king of the underworld and judge of the dead, the gods of his cycle or company appear as witnesses of the judgment.  In the Papyrus of the priestess Anhai [Footnote:  About B.C. 1000.] in the British Museum the great and the little companies of the gods appear as witnesses, but the artist was so careless that instead of nine gods in each group he painted six in one and five in the other.  In the Turin papyrus [Footnote:  Written in the Ptolemaic period.] we see the whole of the forty-two gods, to whom the deceased recited the [Illustration:  The weighing of the heart of the scribe Ani in the Balance in the presence of the gods.] “Negative Confession,” seated in the judgment-hall.  The gods present at the weighing of Ani’s heart are—­

  1.  R[=A]-HARMACHIS, hawk-headed, the Sun-god of the dawn and of noon.

2.  TEMU, the Sun-god of the evening, the great god of Heliopolis.  He is depicted always in human form and with the face of a man, a fact which proves that he had at a very early period passed through all the forms in which gods are represented, and had arrived at that of a man.  He has upon his head the crowns of the South and North.

  3.  SHU, man-headed, the son of R[=a] and Hathor, the personification
  of the sunlight.

  4.  TEFNUT, lion-headed, the twin-sister of Shu, the personification of
  moisture.

  5.  SEB, man-headed, the son of Shu, the personification of the earth.

  6.  NUT, woman-headed, the female counterpart of the gods Nu and Seb;
  she was the personification of the primeval water, and later of the
  sky.

  7.  ISIS, woman-headed, the sister-wife of Osiris, and mother of Horus.