The first of these was a form of judgement of the life of the deceased whereby his or her heart was placed in a scale and weighed against a feather, symbolizing ma’at. The ceremony was supervised by the jackal-headed Anubis and the ibis-headed Thoth, who wrote down the outcome. If the heart passed this test, the deceased could continue their passage through the Duat; if it failed, it was eaten by Ammit, the ‘Devourer’.
