Goddess Maat Ancient Egypt Late Period, 664 – 323 BC Bronze 12 cm height PROVENANCE: Private collection from New York, brought to the US before 1948, to the current owner by descent. CONDITION: Good condition. DESCRIPTION: Maat, in ancient Egyptian religion, the personification of truth, justice, and the cosmic order. The daughter of the sun god Re, she was associated with Thoth, god of wisdom. The ceremony of judgment of the dead (called the “Judgment of Osiris,” named for Osiris, the god of the dead) was believed to focus upon the weighing of the heart of the deceased in a scale balanced by Maat (or her hieroglyph, the ostrich feather), as a test of conformity to proper values. In its abstract sense, maat was the divine order established at creation and reaffirmed at the accession of each new king of Egypt. In setting maat ‘order’ in place of isfet ‘disorder,’ the king played the role of the sun god, the god with the closest links to Maat. Maat stood at the head of the sun god’s bark as it traveled through the sky and the underworld. Although aspects of kingship and of maat were at times subjected to criticism and reformulation, the principles underlying these two institutions were fundamental to ancient Egyptian life and thought and endured to the end of ancient Egyptian history. Notes: - The piece includes authenticity certificate. - The piece includes Spanish Export License (Passport for European Union). NOT TAXES. - According to Spanish legislation, items sent outside the European Union are subject to export taxes and will be added to the invoice, at the buyer's expense. These export fees are fixed on the final auction price and the tax rate is not applied directly on the total value of the item to be exported, but rather the different percentages by sections are applied to it: - Up to 6,000 euros: 5%. - From 6.001 to 60.000 euros: 10%. This export permit application process can take between 1-2 months maximum. - The seller guarantees that he acquired this piece according to all national and international laws related to the ownership of cultural property. Provenance statement seen by Catawiki.