Benson, Margaret; Gourlay, Janet: The temple of Mut in Asher: an account of the excavation of the temple and of the religious representations and objects found therein, as illustrating the history of Egypt and the main religious ideas of the Egyptians (London, 1899)

chap. vii.] THE SOUL AND THE KA.

ii7

called strictly not a theory of immortality at all but
a theory of a transitional state. Another considera-
tion of special importance is the connection from the
earliest times of the Ka with the Ba, or soul, repre-
sented as a human-headed hawk. The Ba, like the
Ka, passes out of the tomb through a passage made
for it. The Ba receives certain material blessings
from the tree spirit, with which both are so intimately
connected that in the earlier cemeteries sacred
sycamores were planted, so that the tree spirit
inhabiting them, as a bird does a favourite fruit
tree, might pour out blessings on the dead.

If this be so, we should have three theories of
immortality, corresponding to three of the mytho-
logies before mentioned—the Ka and the Ba theory,
being associated with the tree spirit, would be that
of the lower or Hamitic races ; the Osirian theory
would be connected with the Osirian and other
human gods of the Libyans, and the solar theory
has its connection as is evident with the cosmic
gods.

It is thought by Professor Petrie that the
mummifying of the dead was brought in by the
Punites, and may indicate a fourth system of im-
mortality.

But though the Ka and Ba, as ghost and soul,
may belong to a distinct scheme of immortality, the
part that the Ka plays is, in a sense, prominent but
unessential. The Ka has no essential immortality ;
it has all the marks of a transitional condition ; the