Anatomy of the Ancient Egyptian Soul: The Ka

In this episode Kara and Amber continue their series on the ancient Egyptian anatomy of the self by exploring the ka—often translated as a “life force,” but an element far more complex than that simple phrase suggests. Drawing on textual evidence like the Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, art, architecture, and funerary practices, Kara and Amber examine how the ka functioned as a sustaining power tied to food offerings, lineage, divine capabilities, and the material world. Their discussion reveals how the ancient Egyptians understood the survival of the ka as something deeply materialistic: a system of bodies, images, offerings, and rituals designed to sustain the ka for eternity.

Show Notes

Allen, James P. 1988. Genesis in Egypt : The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts. Yale Egyptological Seminar, Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Graduate School, Yale University.

Goebs, Katja. 2008. Crowns in Egyptian funerary literature: royalty, rebirth, and destruction. Griffith Institute Monographs. Oxford: Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum.

Lobban, Richard, “A Solution to the Mystery of Was Scepter of Ancient Egypt and Nubia,” KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt (10/3), 1999, 68–77.

Lobban, R. A. and M. Sprague, “Bulls and the W3s Sceptre in Ancient Egypt and Sudan,” Anthrozoös 10, 1997, 14-22.

Schwabe, Calvin W., Joyce Adams, and Carleton T. Hodge, “Egyptian Beliefs about the Bull’s Spine: An Anatomical Origin for Ankh,” Anthropological Linguistics 24, no. 4 (1982): 445–79. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30027646.

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