Ma'at: Cosmic Order and Ethical Balance in Egyptian Thought

Ma'at is simultaneously a goddess, an abstract noun, and a governing concept in ancient Egyptian thought, denoting truth, justice, cosmic order, and right balance all at once. She is depicted anthropomorphically as a seated or standing woman wearing a single ostrich feather on her head, and that feather itself becomes the hieroglyphic determinative for the word ma'at across Egyptian texts from the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BCE) onward. Ma'at is described in Egyptian cosmogonic thought as having been established by the creator god at the moment of creation, holding back isfet, the chaos, falsehood, and disorder that constantly threatens to reassert itself. The Egyptians did not distinguish sharply between a physical cosmic order (the regular flooding of the Nile, the movement of the sun-god Ra across the sky) and a social-ethical order (a just king, honest officials, truthful speech); both were manifestations of the same underlying principle, so that a corrupt vizier and a failed Nile inundation could be read as symptoms of the same cosmic breakdown.