Maat was also the goddess who personified these concepts, and regulated the stars, seasons, and the actions of mortals and the deities who had brought order from chaos at the moment of creation.

[5] Her feather was the measure that determined whether the souls (considered to reside in the heart) of the departed would reach the paradise of the afterlife successfully.

[7] From the Eighteenth Dynasty (c. 1550 – 1295 BC) Maat was described as the daughter of Ra, indicating that pharaohs were believed to rule through her authority.

[15] Maat as a principle was formed to meet the complex needs of the emergent Egyptian state that embraced diverse peoples with conflicting interests.

The significance of Maat developed to the point that it embraced all aspects of existence, including the basic equilibrium of the universe, the relationship between constituent parts, the cycle of the seasons, heavenly movements, religious observations and good faith, honesty, and truthfulness in social interactions.

[18] In addition, several other principles within ancient Egyptian law were essential, including an adherence to tradition as opposed to change, the importance of rhetorical skill and the significance of achieving impartiality and "righteous action".

Maat called the rich to help the less fortunate rather than exploit them, echoed in tomb declarations: "I have given bread to the hungry and clothed the naked" and "I was a husband to the widow and father to the orphan".

Maat represented the normal and basic values that formed the backdrop for the application of justice that had to be carried out in the spirit of truth and fairness.

The Egyptian law preserved the rights of women, who were allowed to act independently of men and own substantial personal property, and in time, this influenced the more restrictive conventions of the Greeks and Romans.

The ethical aspect of Maat gave rise to the social formation of groups of elite individuals called sesh referring to intellectuals, scribes, or bureaucrats.

[24] Besides serving as the civil servant of the kingdom, the sesh had a central role in the society since the ethical and moral concepts of Maat were further formulated, promoted, and maintained by these individuals.

[24] Scribes in particular held prestigious positions in ancient Egyptian society as they were a primary means for the transmission of religious, political, and commercial information.

[28] Religious concerns, as well as the hierarchical structure of Ancient Egyptian society, created important distinctions between elite classes and everyone else.

The political and ideological interests of the elite dominated and directed the majority of social and cultural life in Ancient Egypt.

[29] Illiterate people had a priority to get scribes to their villages because this procedure allowed the government to limit excessive abuses by pointing out the importance of the complaints of the poor.

Scribal instructional texts emphasize fair treatment of all peoples and how anyone who abuses their power is subject to punishment.

[30] Although this procedure was regulated by the local government, it helped provide the poor with the feeling that their petitions were put before higher officials' requests.

[35] Although scribal practices had been implemented before this period, there is no evidence of "systematic schooling" occurring in a materialized institution during the Old Kingdom (2635–2155 BCE).

Therefore, literacy among ancient Egyptians revolved around the mastery of writing and reading in their specific purposes of conducting administration.

[36] Sacred writing emphasized Maat and its moral as well as ethical values and instructions, while instructive writing covered specific discussion about land-measurement and arithmetic for evaluating the annual changes of river and land configurations;[36] as well as for calculating tax, logging commercial business, and distributing supply.

[38] This elementary instruction took 4 years to complete, and then, they could become apprentices of a tutor – an advanced level of education that elevated their scribal careers.

Once the instructors deemed the pupil had made some progress, they would assign the same first two steps toward Middle Egyptian manuscripts, consisting of classical work and instructions.

[43] Maat (which is associated with solar, lunar, astral, and the river Nile's movements) is a concept based on humanity's attempt to live in a natural harmonic state.

A passage from Ptahhotep presents Maat as instruction: Be generous as long as you live What leaves the storehouse does not return; It is the food to be shared which is coveted, One whose belly is empty is an accuser; One deprived becomes an opponent, Don't have him for a neighbor.

The Tale of The Eloquent Peasant is an extended discourse on the nature of Maat[30] in which an officer under the direction of the King is described as taking the wealth of a nobleman and giving it to a poor man he had abused.

[11] The Maat temple at Karnak was also used by courts to meet regarding the robberies of the royal tombs during the rule of Ramesses IX.

If the heart was found to be lighter or equal in weight to the feather of Maat, the deceased had led a virtuous life and would go on to Aaru.

Osiris came to be seen as the guardian of the gates of Aaru after he became part of the Egyptian pantheon and displaced Anubis in the Ogdoad tradition.

[61] They represent the forty-two united nomes of Egypt, and are called "the hidden Maati gods, who feed upon Maat during the years of their lives"; i.e., they are the righteous minor deities who deserve offerings.