The Hall of Two Truths is the judgment hall of ancient Egyptian funerary religion, described extensively in the Book of the Dead, where the deceased's heart is weighed on a scale against the feather of Ma'at, the goddess and principle of truth and cosmic order, in the presence of Osiris and a tribunal of forty-two divine judges. Before the weighing, the deceased recites the negative confession, a lengthy, formal declaration of specific sins not committed, addressing each of the forty-two judges by name and denying a particular wrongdoing to each, a ritual structure that functioned less as an actual confession and more as a rehearsed, almost legal declaration of innocence the deceased was expected to know and correctly perform.
A heart found lighter than or equal to the feather allowed the deceased to proceed to Aaru, the Field of Reeds, the Egyptian paradise, while a heart weighed down by wrongdoing was devoured by Ammit, the composite crocodile, lion and hippopotamus creature waiting beside the scale, resulting in a second, final death and the total loss of continued existence Egyptian religion considered essential to a good afterlife.