Now that Moon Knight has finally landed on Disney Plus, it marks the first entry in the MCU where quite a bit of the story deals with real and true human history. Most of what the MCU has done is to create its own human history with characters such as The Eternals. In fact, that particular group of heroes appear to be quite a bit of the things that people refer to as gods in today's era. However, when it comes to Ammit, the first thing to understand is that "she" is considered a god from Ancient Egypt, though it appears there are a few changes to what is known about the god and quite frankly, whether or not the entity is actually a myth or something that is very real.
Of course, in the MCU, gods are absolutely real. They just tend to be people or things that are actually based in advanced science that appear god-like to humans. The most obvious example of this is Thor and the other Asgardians. In the MCU the Asgardians are all the inspiration for the Norse gods that exist in the real world. Moon Knight has already shown a different kind of entity that appears to be a god that isn't from Asgard but is something else entirely, known as Khonshu. This is the thing briefly seen a number of times for brief seconds when Steven Grant/Marc Spector finds himself in danger. Like Ammit, Khonshu exists both in the MCU and in the real world and quite a bit of the mythology that's used in the comics is based on actual Ancient Egyptian mythology.
Ammit The Egyptian Deity
In Ancient Egyptian religion and mythology, Ammit was one of the entities that dealt with judgement of the human soul. It appears that the depiction is very similar in Moon Knight when looking at what Ethan Hawke's high priest character in Moon Knight shows her to be. In ancient text such as the Book of the Dead, Ammit is a composite female creature with the head of a crocodile, the front legs of a lion, and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus.
In those texts, Ammit was a kind of execution for souls that were judged to be "bad." In other words, when an Egyptian's heart was placed on the scales of Ma'at and it didn't balance out, it became Ammit's job to deal with them. If the heart was judged to not be worthy it was then devoured by this Ammit, and thus that person was consigned to oblivion or some version of hell, depending on the text.
In the Book of the Dead, the way in which Ma'at and the other judges of humanity would determine whether or not a person could go on to paradise, or be devoured by Ammit was to weight the heart against a single feather. If the heart was heavier than the feather, it was seen as not being worthy of getting to move on to paradise. It's important to note that most of the world's major religions have some sort of gatekeeper like Ammit who are there to tell people they are going to be allowed into Heaven or that they have been barred because they are not worthy to move on. However, it appears that for Moon Knight, the role of Ammit has changed a bit. In the MCU, she seems to be less of a passive enforcer and more the judge who doles out the sentence.
Ammit In The MCU
Unlike Khonshu, Moon Knight has yet to show the physical embodiment of Ammit, but her presence is certainly felt. It's worth pointing out that Ethan Hawke's Arthur Harrow makes it clear that she is going to be coming at some point. Whether that means viewers will actually see her or whether she'll be something that Steven/Marc/Moon Knight has to stop from arriving isn't yet known but it appears her arrival is going to be key to this particular story. In the meantime, she seems to be working through Harrow to do the thing that she's done since Ancient Egyptian times.
It turns out that most of what viewers of the Disney Plus series know about Ammit comes from Harrow and because he is a cult leader, there is some reason to wonder how much is Ammit and how much is him. Of course, as the episode goes on, it certainly appears that he is a true believer and not just a conman looking for followers. What Ammit does in the MCU is shown rather early on, after Steven awakes to find himself in a little village in the Alps and in the middle Harrow's cult. He has a scarab that is apparently important to both Harrow and the deity, and it will almost certainly be explained in future episodes just why that is.
When Steven is still in hiding, he manages to see the powers of Ammit when Harrow engages with two different followers. The cult leader's scales of justice tattoo turns either black or red depending on whether someone has been judged to be worthy and good. When an elderly woman is judged to not be good, she explains that she's lived her entire life in order to be judged worthy. However, Harrow explains that Ammit sees not just what she's done, but also what she is going to do. In other words, the Egyptian god is an ancient version of the Minority Report tech.
For now, there isn't a great deal else known about what Ammit is going to do or be in the rest of this first season of Moon Knight. It does appear as if the deity is going to be a major part of what drives the show forward in the coming episodes and while Moon Knight seems to have beaten back the first emissary of Ammit in a museum bathroom, it's a safe bet that Arthur Harrow is not done trying to get that scarab from Marc Spector/Steven Grant.
Episode 1 of Moon Knight is available now on Disney Plus.