Fig. 12.—Scene from a sculptured sarcophagus of the third century a.d., in the Capitoline Museum, Rome. To the left, below the chariot of Selene and the draped figure of Night, lies the dead body of the man, whose soul hovers above him as a butterfly beside the inverted torch of the pensive winged boy representing either Sleep or Death. Fate sits with open scroll at the dead man's head, and above her his soul is again represented as a Psyche, carried away by Hermes. (See Bottari, Musée Capitoline, vol. iv., pl. xxv. Cf. also many representations of Amor and Psyche in ancient art, showing Psyche—the soul—sometimes as a winged figure and sometimes as a butterfly.)
Fig. 13.—The soul of a man leaving him at his death in the form of a naked child, and received by an angel. (From the porch of the cathedral church of St. Trophimus, at Arles.)
The
, Sāhû, also was considered as immortal. This is invariably depicted as a swathed mummy, and represented the form which the man wore upon earth. Originally it was related to the Ka, but whereas the latter was a complete Personality, the Sāhû was nothing but a hull,—a form without contents. Yet this also was of the gods and imperishable, returning to its heavenly home when death had set it free. Since the body, or Kha[30] had also the same form, it naturally came about that when the mummy was mentioned in religious texts as reanimated by the Ka it was frequently confounded with the Sāhû. In this sense it is said that “the Sāhû lives in the Sarcophagus (or in the underworld), it grows (rûd), it renews itself (renp).”[31] But in more precise texts the two things are kept distinct, as, e.g., “the Ba (soul) sees its Kha, it rests upon its Sāhû.”[32] At such times the Ba had power over the Sāhû, and, as is said on the Sarcophagus of Panehemisis, “the Sāhû lives at the command of the Ba.”[33]
In close connection with the Sāhû was the
