, Ba. This conception most nearly corresponds to our “soul,” for it was a being which, on the death of the man in whom it had dwelt, left him in order to fly to the gods, to whom it was closely akin,
Fig. 8.—Ram-headed scarabæus.[27] and with whom it abode when not united to the man. But, nevertheless, the Ba was neither immaterial nor able to dispense with food and drink.[26] It bore the form of a human-headed bird ([fig. 7]), sometimes with hands (figs. [10], [14]); or of a ram-headed scarabæus ([fig. 8]). From the fifteenth to the eleventh century B.C. it was preferably represented under the second form which is really nothing more than its hieroglyphic symbol. The phonetic value of the ram,
, is ba, and of the scarabæus,
, kheper, which latter means to be, to become; and the composite figure of the ram-headed scarabæus signifies, therefore, something like “he who has become a soul.”
