by John Rendace

Created on: September 25, 2010

The Ancient Egyptian concept of one's soul was often quite complicated, and it varied over time. However, the Ba and the Ka remained the two most prevalent aspects of it. Technically, the human soul in Egyptian mythology was divided into five components. The Ren was a person's name, and the Egyptians believed that an individual lived on as long as their name was still spoken.

The concept of Sheut represented an individual's shadow. A shadow was always with a person, and therefore, it seemed as though it contained an aspect of the individual. The Sheut was usually represented as a black figure that acted as a harbinger of death, or as a servant of Anubis.

The judging of the dead was based around the idea of the heart, or Ib. It was placed on a scale against a feather of the goddess Maat, and should it prove heavier, it meant the person's heart was heavy with sin and therefore not worthy of eternal life. Anubis was generally shown as the judge in this case.

However, it was the Ba that was closest to the western concept of a human soul. Nevertheless, the Ba also incorporates some aspects of an individual's personality. Moreover, it's not truly an expression of an immaterial existence for the individual. The Ba has to eat, drink and perform other physical tasks according to Ancient Egyptian theology. Often times the Ba is depicted as a bird with a human's head.

The Ka is the idea of spiritual essence that leaves the body when it dies. Often depicted as a pair of outstretched arms, the Ka was created by either Heket or Meskhent. The physical body, however, was usually crafted by the potter's wheel of the ram-headed god Khnum. Thus Heket or Meskhent would insert the Ka into these bodies crafted by Khnum. In this aspect, the soul needed to be sustained by feeding it. Food and drink were often made as offerings to the dead, though because the kau essence within the food was what was assumed to be consumed, the food was usually later consumed by the living.

The Ba and Ka remained important aspects of the soul throughout antiquity. In fact, they were so influential in Ancient Egypt that the idea of a totally immaterial form of soul was utterly foreign to the Egyptian people. When Christianity spread to Egypt, the Greek term psyche was used to describe the Christian concept of the soul, instead of the word Ba.

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