Egyptian soul

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"Akh" redirects here. For the French hip-hop artist, see Akhenaton (rapper).

In Egyptian mythology, the human soul is made up of seven parts: the Ren, Sekhem, the Akh, the Ba, the Ka, the Sheut, and the Sekhu. During life, the soul, including those of animals, and of gods, was thought to inhabit a body (named the Ha (ḥˁ), meaning flesh).

Egyptians thought of the Akh, Ba and Ka as immortal aspects of the soul. Yet, though it may sound paradoxial, these concepts could only survive if the body of the individual was preserved properly. The Ba for example could not return to the body if it was rotten and unrecognizable and therefore was to roam around forever, hence the mummification of deceased bodies.

[edit] Ren (name)

A person's name (ren in Egyptian) was given to them at birth and would live for as long as that name was spoken, which explains why efforts were made to protect it, placing it in large amounts of writings. For example, part of the Book of Breathings, a descendant of the Book of the Dead, was for ensuring the survival of the name. A cartouche (magical rope) was often used to surround the name and protect it for eternity. Conversely, the names of deceased enemies of the state, such as Akhenaten, were studiously hacked out of monuments.

[edit] Sekhem

The Sekhem is the Energy, Power, and Light of the person who has died.

[edit] Akh

The Akh (meaning shiner), was a concept that varied over the long history of Egyptian belief. It was, at first, the unchanging unification of Ka and Ba, which united after the death of the physical body. In this sense, it was a sort of ghost. The Akh was then a part of the Akh-Akh, the panoply of Akhs from other people, gods and animals. In this system, it was the aspect of a person that would join the gods in the underworld being immortal and unchangeable.

In later belief, the Ka was considered to change into the Akh and Ba after death, rather than uniting with the Ba to become the Akh. At this stage, it was believed that the Akh spent some time dwelling in the underworld before returning and being reincarnated as a Ka, gaining a new Ba.

The separation of Akh / unification of Ka and Ba was created after death, by having the proper offerings made and knowing the proper efficacious spell, but there was an attendant risk of dying again. Egyptian funerary literature (such as the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead) were intended to aid the deceased in "not dying a second time" and becoming an akh.

Alternative: Khu.

[edit] Ba (soul/personality)

The 'Ba' ('b3') is in some regards the closest to the Western notion of the soul, but it also was everything that makes an individual unique, similar to the notion of 'personality'. (In this sense, inanimate objects could also have a 'Ba', a unique character, and indeed Old Kingdom pyramids were often called the 'Ba' of their owner). Like a soul, the 'Ba' is a part of a person that lives after the body dies, and it is sometimes depicted as a human-headed bird flying out of the tomb to join with the 'Ka' in the afterlife.

As with humans, deities could also have 'Bau' (plural of Ba), but in the case of divine beings, it was even more associated with their 'impressiveness', 'power', and 'reputation'. When a god intervened in human affairs, it was said that the 'Bau' (plural of 'Ba') of the god were at work [Borghouts 1982]. In this regard, the king was regarded as a 'Ba' of a god, or one god was believed to be the 'Ba' of another.

[edit] Ka (corporal presence/life force)

The Ka (k3) was the concept of life force, the difference between a living and a dead person, death occurring when the ka left the body. The Ka was thought to be created by Chnum on a potter's wheel, or passed on to children via their father's semen.

The Egyptians also believed that the ka was sustained through food and drink. For this reason food and drink offerings were presented to the dead, though it was the kau (k3w) within the offerings (also known as kau) that was consumed, not the physical aspect. The ka was often represented in Egyptian iconography as a second image of the individual, leading earlier works to attempt to translate ka as double.

Julian Jaynes in his theoretical work The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind suggests that the "ka" originally was a hallucinated god-voice similar to that experienced in schizophrenia. According to his theory, most people were not fully conscious in the early ancient period, and hence his theory is regarded as fringe by the mainstream.

Giacomo Borioni proposes in his work "Der Ka aus religionswissenschaftlicher Sicht" that, according to Friedrich Junge, the Ka was the "self" of a human being.

[edit] Sheut (shadow)

A person's shadow (šwt in Egyptian) was always present. A person could not exist without a shadow, nor the shadow without the person. The shadow was also proir to the soul of the living body, thus connected to death when life was deprived from it. The shadow was represented as a small human figure painted completely black as well as a figure of death, or servant of Anubis.

Alternative: Khaibit

[edit] Sekhu

The remains of a person, the physical body.

[edit] References

• Allen, James Paul. 2001. "Ba". In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, edited by Donald Bruce Redford. Vol. 1 of 3 vols. Oxford, New York, and Cairo: Oxford University Press and The American University in Cairo Press. 161–162.
• Borghouts, Joris Frans. 1982. "Divine Intervention in Ancient Egypt and Its Manifestation (b3w)". In Gleanings from Deir el-Medîna, edited by Robert Johannes Demarée and Jacobus Johannes Janssen. Egyptologische Uitgaven 1. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten. 1–70.
• Borioni, Giacomo C. 2005. "Der Ka aus religionswissenschaftlicher Sicht", Veröffentlichungen der Institute für Afrikanistik und Ägyptologie der Universität Wien.
• Burroughs, William S. 1987. "The Western Lands", Viking Press. (fiction).
• Friedman, Florence Margaret Dunn. 1981. On the Meaning of Akh (3ḫ) in Egyptian Mortuary Texts. Doctoral dissertation; Waltham: Brandeis University, Department of Classical and Oriental Studies.
• ———. 2001. "Akh". In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, edited by Donald Bruce Redford. Vol. 1 of 3 vols. Oxford, New York, and Cairo: Oxford University Press and The American University in Cairo Press. 47–48.
• James, Julian. 1976. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Princeton University.
• Žabkar, Louis Vico. 1968. A Study of the Ba Concept in Ancient Egyptian Texts. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 34. Chicago: University of Chicago Pressca:Ba

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