Chapter CXXV

. of the Book of the Dead.] From the earliest times the Ma[=a]ti were the two goddesses Isis and Nephthys, and they were so called because they represented the ideas of straightness, integrity, righteousness, what is right, the truth, and such like; the word Ma[=a]t originally meant a measuring reed or stick. They were supposed either to sit in the Hall of Ma[=a]t outside the shrine of Osiris, or to stand by the side of this god in the shrine; an example of the former position will be seen in the Papyrus of Ani (Plate 31), and of the latter in the Papyrus of Hunefer (Plate 4). The original idea of the Hall of Ma[=a]t or Ma[=a]ti was that it contained forty-two gods; a fact which we may see from the following passage in the Introduction to