Online Activities: Ancient Egypt

The Ka, the Ba, and the Akh

Over the course of their three millennia of culture, the Ancient Egyptians developed many complex ideas about humanity. Western European culture often divides the person into body and soul. Modern psychology divides the person in other ways, using terms such as ego, id, and superego, or animus and anima, persona and so on.

There are seven, or perhaps nine, elements to the human being in Egyptian thought: the name, the heart, the corpse or body, the shadow, and three spiritual elements called the ka, ba, and akh. Two other elements, the sekhem which is the individual's ability to control his faculties, and the sakhu which refers to a person's social status in this world or the next, are sometimes considered. No one knows to what extent ordinary Egyptians thought about the many theoretical divisions of the being. The is good evidence, though, that at least to the level of craftsmen, people did believe in the existence of the Ka, Ba, and Akh.

The Ka

The idea that some part of the human personality survived death is a very ancient one in Egypt. Many kings formed their names with the element ka: for example, Menkaure and Shepseskaf of the Fourth Dynasty. Ka was also a common element in non-royal names. The hieroglyphic sign for ka shows two arms, palms open, outstretched. The word ka has associations with food, with bulls, and with the soul, the spirit or essence of a human being.

Every person, rich or poor, man or woman, had a ka. It was the life force, the element that made the difference between a living person and a dead body. At death, the body and the ka were separated. In order to enjoy eternal life, they had to be reunited.

The ka was a spiritual entity, but it needed food to survive. This food could be in the form of real offerings, or it could be images or even words. Inscriptions on tombs from the Age of the Pyramids often ask passers-by to say a prayer - "May this official be given a thousand loaves of bread, a thousand jugs of beer," because the words would be enough to feed the ka if no tangible offerings were available. The written prayers, as well as the pictures and the appeal to the living, were all required if the ka was to survive. The ka could inhabit a human body, or a statue. The images found in serdabs are ka statues, able to replace the body of the deceased if it should be destroyed. The ka needed a recognizable form to dwell in; without it, the ka might cease to exist.

The Ba

The ba is another spiritual entity. In the Age of the Pyramids, it was thought that only the King had a ba. The word ba was similar in sound to the word for 'ram' and seems to have connotations of power and strength similar to that animal. Unlike the ka which had to stay near the body of the deceased, the ba could move above, even fly. In later periods of Egyptian history, every person was believed to have a ba. The Ba is often shown as a human-headed bird, flying over the motionless body of the deceased, or exiting the tomb.

Some charming images from Ramesside Books of the Dead show the Ba perched on the arm of the deceased, or hugged to his body, like a pet parrot. the 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. Like the Ka, the Ba reacquires food. The Ba wants to move, eat and copulate forever.

The Akh

An akh is yet another spiritual entity. Every good person who died and was buried in 'hallowed ground' in the official cemeteries, became an akh. This word was used, as far back as the First Dynasty. An akh is the blessed or 'transfigured' soul of a person who died and whose soul had been judged by Osiris and found maat kheru - justified. An akh was an effective spirit, one would could still influence events in this world. It is because he has become an akh that Metjetji can promise to help anyone who prays for him:

As for any servant or any man of my funerary estate who will come to offer to me [and give me bread], I will let him see that he recognizes it is useful to offer to a spirit (akh) in the necropolis.

Condemned criminals were not permitted a proper burial, and their real names were stripped from them, so that they could not survive in the Afterlife. An evil-doer could not become an akh. Thus, criminals were condemned in this life and in the next.

Both the Ka and the Akh required a tomb and a preserved body in order to survive. The Ancient Egyptians took this requirement very seriously. When the explorer Mekhu died on active service in Nubia, his son Sebni took a troop of men and a hundred donkeys loaded with trade goods, and located his father's body and brought it back to Egypt for mummification and burial. When King Pepy II learned of Sebni's filial piety, he sent a letter by royal courier:

It was said in this command, "I will do for thee every excellent thing, as a reward for this great deed; because of thy bringing thy [father].

Death did not break the bonds between the living and the dead. The living had a duty to help those who had gone before them, and to those who would come after, by building and maintaining tombs. Tombs were the interface between time and eternity.

 

 

Predynastic burial

Egyptian Desert