sutekihotaru:

An Egyptian’s spirit life
“A living Egyptian’s body is called khet or iru, meaning “appearance.”The body is known as khat.When the khat is mummified, it becomes a sah. Mummification changes the dead person into a new body filled with magic. Each individual has three souls, called the ka, the ba, and the akh.The ka is a person’s “life force,” which is given to a new being by Heqet after Khnum has created them on his potter’s wheel. Ka is represented in hieroglyphs by a pair of arms pointing upward, as seen in the picture above of a husband and wife raising their arms to Osiris.The ka survives a person’s death, so it requires food and drink, which is why Egyptians make food offerings to the dead. The ba is an individual’s personality, what makes them unique. The ba must leave the tomb to rejoin the person’s ka in order to become an akh.The akh is the dead person’s spirit, a ghost that can reach beyond the tomb to have both positive and negative effects on the living.When the ka and ba are reunited with the akh the dead person becomes enduring and unchanged for all eternity.” _ From “Living in Ancient Egypt” by Norman Bancroft-Hunt.