[2] On these component parts cf. Wiedemann in the Proceedings of the Orientalist Congress at St. Etienne, II. (1878), p. 159 et seq. Many parallel texts to the additional chapter of The Book of the Dead, there referred to, may be found in Von Bergmann's Sarkophag des Panehemisis, I., p. 22; II., p. 74 et seq.
[3] On this account Ka was sometimes used as interchangeable with Ren (
)—name.
[4] There is no modern word which exactly expresses the Egyptian idea of the Ka; Maspero’s translation of “Double, Doppelgänger” is the best hitherto proposed; Meyer’s translation of “Ghost” (Gesch. Æg., p. 83) is altogether misleading.
[5] The illustration is taken from Lepsius, Denkmäler, III. 21. Here the solar cartouche, or throne-name, of Thothmes II., and his Horus-: or Ka-name, are palimpsests effacing the names of Queen Hatshepsû Rāmaka, the builder of the temple. The figures in this scene originally represented the Queen and her Ka; but as she is always portrayed in male attire throughout the temple, it was only necessary to change her names in order to appropriate her figure as that of a king. The first satisfactory explanation of the Horus-or Ka-name was given by Petrie in A Season in Egypt, pp. 21, 22; cf. Maspero, Études Égyptologiques) II., p. 273 et seq. He shows that the rectangular parallelogram in which the Horus-name is written is the exact equivalent of the square panel over the false door in the tomb, by which the Ka was supposed to pass from the sepulchral vault into the upper chamber, or tomb-chapel, where offerings were provided for it. A private person had but one name, which was also the name of his Ka. But, on ascending the throne, the king took four new names in addition to the one which he had hitherto borne, and among them a name for his Ka.
[6] We have a crude representation of this Ka sign, dating from the reign of Amenemhat I., of the Twelfth Dynasty; see Petrie, Tanis I. (Second Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund), pl. I., No. 3.
[7] Lepsius, Denkmäler, III. 186. The hands of the Ka-staff have doubtless a common origin with those of the Ka-sign—
.