THE AFTERLIFE ACCORDING TO EGYPT

The Afterlife played an important role in Ancient Egyptian religion. For them the soul of a human resided in the heart.
Upon death, people's souls went to the realm of the Dead, for judgment. Each human heart had to be weighed on a giant scale against a feather, representing the concept of Ma'at.
Maat was the Egyptian concept of Truth, Balance, Order, Harmony, Law, Morality, and Justice in relation with the universal forces controlling the existence of the Universe. This concept or force of energy was personified as a goddess regulating the stars, seasons, and the actions of both mortals and deities. She was understood as the powerful force that set the order of the universe from chaos at the moment of creation. Maat was the norm for nature and society in the World of the living and the next.  Most goddesses were paired with a male force or aspect, in the understanding that each of them was built as complementary forces and also paradoxical(dualism). One could not exist without its counterpart. Isfet and Maat balanced each other.
Her ideological counterpart of the term Maat was Isfet (Chaos), representing the force of mind built on religious, social and political terms. The corruption of it formed Chaos acting force. The Pharaoh was appointed to achieve Maat role, which meant to keep and protect justice, and harmony by destroying Isfet, in the sense of a corrupting force acting in the mind altering the sense of law and order. The principles of the contrariness between Isfet and Maat are exemplified in a popular tale called "the moaning of the Bedouin": 'Those who destroy the Lie promote Maat; those who promote the good will erase the evil. As fullness casts out appetite, as clothes cover the nude and as heaven clears up after a storm'. In the eyes of the Egyptians Maat was the controlling force acting in the mind able to tame the power of Chaos through the application of universal rules in order to coexist. A world without the wisdom and knowledge of GOD, the real Maker with the power to destroy evil. A world full of illusions, replacing GOD by a mere illusion of peace.
Her masculine counterpart was Thoth. He played many vital and prominent roles, such as maintaining the forces of the universe in balance, and being one of the 2 deities, the other being Maat, who stood on either side of Ra's boat. He became heavily associated with the arbitration of supernatural disputes, the mystical arts, the system of writing, the development of science, and the judgment of the dead. He was depicted in many ways depending on the era and on the aspect the artist wished to convey. Usually, he is depicted in his human form with the head of an ibis. In this form, he can be represented as the reckoner of times and seasons by a headdress of the lunar disk sitting on top of a crescent moon resting on his head. He served as a mediating power between good and evil, making sure neither had a decisive victory over the other. He also served as scribe of the gods. In the Underworld, Duat, he appeared as Aani, the dog-headed ape, the god of equilibrium, who reported when the scales weighing the deceased's heart against the feather, representing Maat's principle, was exactly even. He was known as One, self-begotten, and self-produced, master of both physical and moral divine law, making proper use of Maat's principle. He was the one credited with making the calculations for the establishment of the heavens, stars, earth,and everything in them, and Maat was the force which make the universe a save place to live. He is said to direct the motions of the heavenly bodies. Without the declaration of his mystical words, the gods would not exist. His power was unlimited in the Underworld and rivaled that of Ra and Osiris.
Duat the realm of the deity Osiris and the residence of other gods and supernatural beings, also was the region through which the sun god Ra traveled from West to East during the night, and where he battled Apep, the embodiment of Chaos. It was also the place where the people's souls went after dead for judgment, though that was not the full extent of the afterlife.
The ancient Book of Gates was a funerary text that referred to the different types of human race known to them, dividing them up into 4 categories: Reth (Egyptians), Aamu (Asiatics), Themehu (Libyans), and Nehesu (Nubians). These were depicted in procession entering the next world. The goddesses listed had different titles, and wore different colored clothes, but identical in all other respects, wearing a 5 pointed star above their heads. Most of the goddesses were specific to the book, and do not appear elsewhere. The goddess determined the star and the time at night that the soul started its journey.
The soul was required to pass through a series of gates at different stages in the journey, corresponding to the journey of the sun through the underworld during the night hours. Each gate was associated with the different goddess, and required that the deceased recognized the particular character of the deity. The text implied that some people passed through unharmed, but that others suffered torment in a lake of fire.
The Book of Caverns first of all describes the journey of the sun god Ra from the Western horizon to the Eastern horizon through the 6 caverns of the Underworld, focusing on the interaction between the sun god and the creatures that he meets in charge of the inhabitants of it, including rewards for the righteous and punishments for the enemies of the Worldly Order, those who fail their judgment against the feather. Important landmarks on this journey are: -The Cavern of the Justified Deceased. -The Cavern of Osiris's corpse and the sun god's own 2 divine bodies. -The Exit of the Underworld for the sun rise. The book is one of the best sources of information about the concept of hell. During this journey, the sun god passes over the Cavern of Hell, in which the enemies of the World Order (enemies of the sun god and Osiris) are being destroyed. The book also give hints on the topographical structure of the Underworld. The first known almost complete version of the book was located in the Osireion  by excavating the site in 1902 through 1903. It was found directly across from the Book of Gates within the entrance passage on the left wall. The Osireion is an ancient temple located in Abydos, to the rear of the temple of Seti I. It is an integral part of Seti's funeral complex. It was originally built at a considerable lower level than the foundations of the temple of Seti.
The ancient Book of the Dead consisted of a number of texts intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or Underworld, and into the afterlife, and written by many trained priests over a period of 1000 years. It was most written in hieroglyphic script on a papyrus scroll, and often illustrated a plot, with a short impressionistic scene that focused on one moment or character giving a trenchant impression about the character's specific traits, and a detailed scene of the world, . It was more than evoking meaning through imagery in a short descriptive passage.
The surviving papyri contain a varying selection of rituals and texts that vary considerably in their illustration, that give the impression that priests had their own copies of the Book of Dead.