Duat is a place of darkness and home of terrifying demons, the Duat was a mythological location between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The Amduat, “The Book of That Which is in the Netherworld,” says the Duat is located deep in a valley that separates Earth from the Netherworld. When Re the sun god sinks below the horizon at the end of each day to begin the 12-hour journey he is accompanied by souls of the deceased. Only those souls found to be pure after the Weighing of the
Heart Ceremony are allowed to accompany the sun god on this perilous journey. At the end of the twelfth hour, after successfully battling and overpowering evil demons that menace the sun god at every hour, Re and the souls emerge safely into the welcoming realm of the sky goddess, Nut. Re appears on the horizon to begin a new day, and the souls prepare for resurrection in the Netherworld. The Duat is the realm of the dead in ancient Egyptian mythology. It has been represented in hieroglyphs as a star-in-circle.
The god Osiris was believed to be the lord of the underworld. He was the first mummy as depicted in the Osiris myth and he personified rebirth and life after death. The underworld was also the residence of various other gods along with Osiris. The geography of the Duat is similar in outline to the world the Egyptians knew: There are realistic features like rivers, islands, fields, lakes, mounds and caverns, but there were also fantastic lakes of fire, walls of iron, and trees of turquoise.
In the Book of Two Ways (a Coffin Text) there is even a map-like image of the Duat. The Duat was also a residence for various gods, including Osiris, Anubis, Thoth, Horus, Hathor, and Maat, who all appear to the dead soul as it makes its way toward judgement. In spite of the many demon-like inhabitants of the Duat, it is not equivalent to the conceptions of Hell in the Abrahamic religions, in which souls are condemned with fiery torment.
The absolute punishment for the wicked, in ancient Egyptian thought, was the denial of an afterlife to the deceased. The grotesque spirits of the underworld were not evil, but rather acted as directed by the gods, to provide the various ordeals that the deceased had to face.
The absolute punishment for the wicked, in ancient Egyptian thought, was the denial of an afterlife to the deceased. The grotesque spirits of the underworld were not evil, but rather acted as directed by the gods, to provide the various ordeals that the deceased had to face.