The Presentation of Maat: Ritual and Legitimacy in Ancient Egypt (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization)

This work studies the relationship between the king and Maat, the personification of "truth," as documented in reliefs of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period. It includes a detailed study of the chronology, iconography, and theology of the ritual of offering Maat and the royal name equated with Maat. Central to the volume is an investigation of the construction of, and variations in, the offering formulas and what modifications in those texts reflect about the status of the king and about the relevance of Maat to ethics in the Ramesside period.