Egyptian funerary religion
Ka
Tirard distinguishes the Ka from the Ba and the Khu, describing it as a double retaining the person’s features. Its continuing relationship with the body helps explain the care devoted to preservation. Portrait statues provide alternative bodily supports, and the tomb supplies food, tools, and familiar possessions. Survival is imagined through continuity with an individual’s habits and surroundings.
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In the sources
Principal account
TraditionalTirard distinguishes the Ka from the Ba and the Khu, describing it as a double retaining the person’s features. Its continuing relationship with the body helps explain the care devoted to preservation.
Further detail
TraditionalPortrait statues provide alternative bodily supports, and the tomb supplies food, tools, and familiar possessions. Survival is imagined through continuity with an individual’s habits and surroundings.
Context & interpretation
Tirard’s 1910 account interprets selected funerary texts and rituals through the scholarship of her period. Local cults and surviving manuscripts vary; her comparisons and proposed origins are not a modern Egyptological consensus.
Original passages
Source 1
The Book of the Dead
body the three principal parts were the Ka or double, the equivalent of our ghost, the Ba or soul, and the Khu or luminous,Open this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Egyptian funerary religion; active reader leaf 17
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0039-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0039-E001-P0017
- Original scan leaf
- 27
- Recorded leaf number
- 17
- Current Reader position
- 13
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
- Location review
- Original scan location confirmed against the reviewed Reader mapping; the earlier recorded number is retained above.
Source 2
The Book of the Dead
buried portrait statues of the deceased, alternative bodies for the Ka. These chambers were connected with the funeral chapel by air-holes or tubes, which formedOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Egyptian funerary religion; active reader leaf 18
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0039-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0039-E001-P0018
- Original scan leaf
- 28
- Recorded leaf number
- 18
- Current Reader position
- 14
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
- Location review
- Original scan location confirmed against the reviewed Reader mapping; the earlier recorded number is retained above.
Continue exploring
Ba
The mobile aspect of the soul in Tirard’s account, pictured as a human-faced bird able to leave and return to the mummy.
Shared source pageKhu
The luminous aspect of the deceased in Tirard’s account, associated with radiance and the company of the glorified dead.
Same subject and traditionThe Heart in Egyptian Judgment
The organ made witness to a person’s conduct at the balance.