{"id":46252,"date":"2018-12-02T07:44:38","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T07:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/02\/the-egyptian-soul-the-ka-the-ba-and-the-akh\/"},"modified":"2018-12-02T07:44:38","modified_gmt":"2018-12-02T07:44:38","slug":"the-egyptian-soul-the-ka-the-ba-and-the-akh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/02\/the-egyptian-soul-the-ka-the-ba-and-the-akh\/","title":{"rendered":"The Egyptian Soul: the ka, the ba, and the akh"},"content":{"rendered":"

tomasorban<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The Ancient Egyptians believed the soul had three parts, \u00a0the ka, the ba, and the akh. <\/i><\/p>\n

The ka and ba were spiritual entities that everyone possessed, but the akh was an entity \u00a0reserved for only the select few that were deserving of maat kheru. \u00a0 Their beliefs were that the living were responsible to help the dead \u00a0journey into the Afterlife. \u00a0\u201cThe living had a duty to help those who had gone before them, and to those who would come after, by building and maintaining tombs. \u00a0Tombs were the interface between time and eternity. \u201dThis belief also included the preservation of the deceased body. <\/i><\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

The Ka<\/b><\/h2>\n

\u201cThe ka was essentially a person\u2019s double,\u201d it was the life force and at death it was separated from the body.\u00a0<\/sup>The reason for extensive and elaborate preparation for the body for the after life was to ensure the ka had a home. \u00a0The living would sometimes provide bread, beer, oxen and fowl to feed the ka for the afterlife. \u00a0They also believed the deceased body would have to resemble the past living body as much as possible so the ka could recognize its body and then the ba would \u201creturn to it each night after spending time in the sunshine.\u201d\u00a0The living would leave more than just food for the deceased if possible. \u00a0They would also leave servants, weapons, jewelry, clothes, and their mummified pets, in their tomb\u2014anything that would help them in their afterlife. \u00a0The tombs would also house the Shabti<\/i>\u00a0statues that represented servants who would help the owner of the tomb in the after life. \u00a0\u201cThe backs of these figurines were inscribed with Chapter 6 of The Book of the Dead<\/i>. This spell ensured that if the owner of the shabti was called upon at any time to do any kind of compulsory labour the shabti would respond and perform the duty instead of its owner.\u201d[19]<\/sup> The tombs from the Age of the Pyramids would have inscriptions on the tomb that would read, \u201cMay this official be given a thousand loaves of bread, a thousand jugs of beer\u201d, in hopes this prayer would be enough to feed the ka, if no offerings were available.<\/p>\n

The Ba<\/b><\/p>\n

The ba, another spiritual entity was seen as a human-headed bird hovering over the deceased or exiting the tomb in the hieroglyphics, and was the part of the soul that could travel between the worlds of the living and the dead.\u00a0During the Age of the Pyramids, it was believed only the King had a ba. The word ba was similar to the word \u2018ram\u2019 and was associated with strength and power. \u00a0In later periods of Egyptian history, it was believed every person had a ba.\u00a0 The ba also required food to move and survive in the afterworld. \u00a0There are images from Ramesside Books of the Dead <\/i>that show the ba perched on the arm of the decease, or hugged to his body, like a pet parrot. \u00a0The small pyramids built over the tomb chapels at Deir el Medina contained a little niche near the top, where the ba could perch, to watch the sunrise and to observe the goings-on in the village where it had lived.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

The Akh<\/b><\/h2>\n

The akh, another spiritual entity which \u201cwas the transfigured spirit that survived death and mingled with the gods.\u201d\u00a0One source explained that the akh was only allowed to individuals whose souls were worthy because they were good people in their past lives. \u00a0Condemned criminals did not have proper burials and their real names were buried with them. \u00a0So it was believed criminals could not survive in the Afterlife and the criminal could not become or have an akh.\u00a0 \u201cAn akh is the blessed or \u2018transfigured\u2019 soul of a person who died and whose soul had been judged by Osiris and found maat kheru- justified. \u00a0An akh was an effective spirit, one could still influence events in this world.\u201d\u00a0 The akh and ka were believed to need a preserved body and tomb in order to exist. <\/p>\n

The Maat Kheru<\/b><\/h2>\n

Maat, the goddess of Truth, Justice and Balance\u00a0took the form of an ostrich feather. The final trial of the deceased would be to have his heart weighed against Maat. If the person had led a good and decent life, his heart would be in balance and he would pass into the Afterlife. But if the weight of his heart did not balance with Maat, a monster named the The Devourer consumed his heart. \u00a0The heart was identified as \u201cthe seat of intelligence and moral judgement, as well as of emotions.\u201d\u00a0The term Maat Kheru is identified with the party at the end of a civil trial that would be declared innocent and true, or \u2018true of voice\u2019 or \u2018justified\u2019.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

tomasorban: The Ancient Egyptians believed the soul had three parts, \u00a0the ka, the ba, and the akh. The ka and ba were spiritual entities that everyone possessed, but the akh was an entity \u00a0reserved for only the select few that were deserving of maat kheru. \u00a0 Their beliefs were that the living were responsible to … Continue reading “The Egyptian Soul: the ka, the ba, and the akh”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}