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The Ka and the Ba

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Understanding the pivotal concepts of Egyptian identity is a necessity to understand hieroglyphic writing. The Ka and the Ba are among the most important and complex hieroglyphic ideograms. "Ka" is a concept deeply rooted in the Ancient Egyptian Persona. In the simplest terms, it is the idea that each one of us has a soul consort mirroring our own souls, our spiritual double. This double takes after our own bodies "ghet" for it can only materialise with it to form us as a whole. This consort lives on even after our own death. Offerings to the Ka were a necessity since, like the person's physical body, the Ka needed nourishment. The idea is a bit similar to the Qareen in Islamic religion, however the nature of the Ka remains much more ambiguous. The phonetic biliteral sign with the predominant ideogram of the Ka represents the breast and outstretched arms of a person pictorially. Ka can also mean personality, individuality and even a man's fortune or his posi...
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The Amduat: The ancient Egyptian book of the underworld

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Imi dw3t, means the book of what is in the Duat "Netherworld". It also means the book of the hidden chamber. It was an important funerary text of the New Kingdom of Egypt. It tells the journey of the sun god Re through the Netherworld. It is often believed that the king takes the same journey and becomes one with Re in eternal life. The Amduat is divided into twelve hours according to the twelve hours of the night: it begins when the sun sets in the west and rises again in the east. The boat of the sun god faces many obstacles and the journey becomes a drama. The earliest complete copies of the Amduat are retrieved from the tomb of Thutmose the Third. The hours of the Amduat The first hour: the sun god enters into the Netherworld "the gate which swallows all" represented as ram-headed Ba. It describes the Netherworld's inhabitants and there's  a list of 741 deities in the burial chamber. The second and third hour: it describes the  fertile farmlands of the...
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Khonsu: The Lunar God

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Khonsu was considered as the son of Amun and Mut, with whom he formed the Theban triad. He was a god of fertility and healing, as is recorded in the story of the “Princess of Bekheten”. Khonsu was believed to have the ability to drive out evil spirits. His name is derived from the Egyptian word "khenes" meaning "to travel" and this probably alluding to his nightly journey across the sky. A great temple was built for Khonsu in the Karnak complex at Thebes. It was begun by Ramesses III, in the New Kingdom but enlarged by later rulers. Although the good epithets that konsu got, he also had a dark side. Khonsu the devourer Khonsu was a benevolent god in the New Kingdom, but in early times specifically the Old Kingdom, he was not benevolent, but violent and horrible. There is a part of the Pyramid Texts described Khonsu as a bloodthirsty maniac, who killed and ate other gods’ hearts in order to absorb their powers. In other texts, he was described as “Khonsu who li...
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