Heart amulet with human head

In ancient Egypt the heart was already known to be a vital organ and the ancient Egyptians were therefore fearful of damage to the heart. One of the tasks of a heart amulet was to protect it and thus secure life functions. The heart was also thought to be the centre of feelings, thinking, memory, and therefore of consciousness and moral values. Heart amulets with a human head are personified hearts, depicting the organ together with the head of the deceased.
For the deceased the heart was extremely significant, as the Egyptians believed that at the final judgement, it was weighed against maat, the principle of justice and world order (see 30.3.31). Only if the deceased had acted in his or her lifetime according to maat was he or she allowed to live on in the Netherworld. Understandably, the ancient Egyptians were afraid to fail this strict judgement and special amulets were used to ensure a positive outcome. One of these was the popular heart scarab that depicts the scarab beetle, its underside inscribed with Book of the Dead chapter 30B. This text calls upon the heart not to stand up as a witness against its owner, not to be opposed to him or her, and not to tell lies.
The heart amulet was another such amulet. When placed on a mummy, like the heart scarab, it was meant to guarantee a positive outcome at the final judgement. This last point is made evident by the inscriptions on several large heart amulets of the New Kingdom, which bear chapter 30B of the Book of the Dead. Additionally there was a Book of the Dead chapter (29B) which belonged exclusively to heart amulets.
On funerary papyri or tomb walls the deceased can be depicted wearing a heart amulet around the neck. Many of these scenes depict the deceased after the final tribunal. Therefore, in these depictions, the heart amulet cannot have had the function of guaranteeing a positive judgement, but was probably meant as a kind of badge, demonstrating that the deceased had successfully passed the final judgement and was now a "justified one." Not only did depictions of heart amulets function as badges, but the actual amulets did so as well. This secured the deceased unimpeded access to the Netherworld. Heart amulets that were used in a funerary context clearly had many different and complex meanings.
Heart amulets with longer inscriptions, figurative decoration, or with a human head seem to occur only during the New Kingdom and into Dynasties 21-22 and are often relatively large.
Isabel Stünkel 2016

Donated to the Museum by Miss A.M. Hegemann, 1938.