Moon Knight’s Ammit: Egyptian Goddess Explained

It didn’t take too long for Moon Knight to give us a good idea of what the series is all about, especially when it introduced Arthur Harrow, the series villain, in episode 1. Harrow, like Steven/Marc, is associated with an Egyptian deity that gives him powers. This deity we are talking about is the goddess Ammit, who uses Harrow as her avatar on Earth. So, who is Moon Knight’s Ammit?

Ammit is an Egyptian goddess that’s associated with judgment at the time of a person’s death. She is a beast that devours the hearts of people who were judged to be evil. Moon Knight’s Ammit could be based on Marvel’s Ammut, a sphinx that serves the Egyptian goddess Ma’at.

One of the things that were never a secret when it came to Marvel Studio’s Moon Knight is that there is a lot of freedom involved in creating the story. In that regard, Ammit is one of the creative changes introduced to the series because she seems to be an entirely new character. That said, let’s look at what we know about Moon Knight’s Ammit.

Who Is Ammit In Moon Knight?

One of the things that were revealed to fans before the release of Moon Knight is the possibility of different Egyptian deities getting involved with one another, for better or worse. This was basically confirmed in episode 1 of Moon Knight when Khonshu, through Steven/Marc, was interfering with Arthur Harrow’s affairs.

It was revealed in episode 1 of Moon Knight that Harrow is a religious zealot and a cult leader that led a cult that worshipped an Egyptian goddess named Ammit. It is safe to say that Harrow is basically the main antagonist of this series and that he is acting on behalf of the goddess Ammit. But who is Ammit in Moon Knight?

As of the moment, it is yet to be fully explained who Ammit is in Moon Knight. But we do know a few things based on what we saw in episode 1 of the new Disney+ series, especially if we take Harrow’s actions into consideration.

When Steven found himself waking up in a Hungarian town, he had to run away from armed gunmen. In doing so, he found himself among a crowd of people that worshipped Arthur Harrow, who introduced himself as the representative of the goddess Ammit.

Harrow showcased his abilities by using his tattoo to judge whether or not someone was worth Ammit’s blessings. When a person was judged to be pure, they would be welcomed among the people that served Ammit under Harrow’s leadership. But when they were judged otherwise, they would end up dying on the spot through supernatural means, as was the case of the woman who thought of herself as pure but was deemed otherwise by Ammit through Harrow.

It is safe to say that Ammit in Moon Knight is some sort of an Egyptian goddess that judged the purity of people. And she did so through Arthur Harrow, who acts as her avatar, much like how Steven/Marc acts as Khonshu’s avatar.

However, the character of Ammit is something that was derived from Egyptian mythology. And her description in Egyptian mythology is more or less similar to how she is portrayed in Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight.

In Egyptian mythology, while Ammit is often portrayed as a goddess, she is also portrayed as a divine beast that worked together with the gods of the afterlife. She is associated with a person’s judgment, much like how Moon Knight’s Ammit is associated with judging a person. However, the mythological version of Ammit judges only the dead.

As a beast, Ammit is portrayed to be a creature with the head of a crocodile, the upper body of a lion, and the lower body of a hippopotamus. In many ways, she is like a sphinx or a chimera because she is a combination of various animals.

What Ammit does is that she eats the hearts of those who are judged to have done more evil deeds than good ones when they were alive. When she eats the hearts of the impure, they are prevented from ever coming back to life again in the future. This is why she is often considered the eater of the dead in Egyptian mythology.

In that regard, there are similarities between how Moon Knight portrays Ammit and how Egyptian mythology describes her. They are both involved with the judgment of a person. However, in Moon Knight, Ammit serves as the judge, jury, and executioner whenever Harrow uses his powers to judge the purity of a person’s heart. On the other hand, the mythological version of the goddess is a beast that merely executes the judgment whenever the other gods have deemed the person to be impure.

This means that the MCU version of Ammit was probably concocted freely by the people behind Marvel Studios so that it would be easier for Moon Knight to be a story about the conflict between different Egyptian deities. Then again, we haven’t seen more of Moon Knight to truly determine exactly how Ammit is portrayed. This means that we have to see more of the series to understand what this deity is all about and how she fits her mythological version.

Is Ammit In The Marvel Comics?

It might not come as a surprise that Ammit is actually in the Marvel comics. After all, Moon Knight is derived from the comics, like all of the other Marvel series. However, the Ammit in the comics is a lot different from how the character is portrayed in the series.

Called Ammut in the comics, this character is a sphinx that serves the goddess Ma’at. That means that she is less than a goddess in the comics and is more of a side character serving a superior being.

It is also worthy of mentioning that Ammut in the comics isn’t entirely associated with Moon Knight. Throughout the character’s existence in the comics, Ammut had only appeared in one instance in the Moon Knight story when she assisted Marc Spector in one of the missions that Khonshu sent him out on.

So, even though the entire Moon Knight series is derived from the comics, the creative freedom in the series is actually at the highest because of the fact that there were many changes introduced in the profiles of the different characters. Ammit is merely one of those characters, but Harrow himself also saw a few changes from his comic book counterpart.

Then again, we only have to wait and see for what’s to come in the next episodes of Moon Knight, especially when it comes to Ammit’s overall motives and how Harrow and Steven/Marc play a role in what the goddess wants to achieve.