Ammit (“devourer” or “soul-eater”; also spelled Ammut or Ahemait) was a creature which dwelled in the Hall of Ma'at - near the scales of justice in the Egyptian underworld - awaiting the judgement of the deceased that passed through there. The process of judgement involved the weighing of the deceased person’s heart against the feather of Ma'at. If the heart (the seat of the soul, according to the ancient Egyptians) was found to be heavy with sin and impurities and did not balance with the feather, Ammit would devour it, and the person undergoing judgement was not allowed to continue their voyage towards Osiris and immortality. Once Ammit swallowed the heart, the soul was believed to become restless forever; this was called “to die a second time”. The goddess was depicted with the head of a crocodile, the forequarters of a lion, and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus.Ammit was not worshipped; instead she embodied all that the Egyptians feared, threatening to bind them to eternal restlessness if they did not follow the principle of Ma'at.