To the Ancient Egyptians, a person was never merely flesh and blood. Each human was a constellation of spiritual parts: Ka (vital essence & spiritual double), Ba (personality or soul), Akh (the luminous, transfigured spirit), Ren (name), Ib (heart), and the Shut; the shadow. The shadow was more than the absence of light. It was...
Each year, on the last night of October, the western world observes Halloween; a festival of flickering lights and shadows, when children dress up in both whimsy and ghoulish costume, and the dead are remembered with sweets, stories, and laughter. Its name derives from All Hallows’ Eve, the vigil before All Saints’ Day, yet its...
In Ancient Egyptian belief, the afterlife, known as Aaru, or the Field of Reeds, was not some ethereal realm of clouds and choirs, but rather a perfected reflection of life along the Nile. To the Egyptians, paradise was not an abstract heaven above but an idealised Egypt itself: abundant, eternal, and unmarred by suffering or...
In Ancient Egyptian thought, the gods were not merely supernatural beings to be worshipped, but profound personifications of essential concepts that underpinned the very fabric of existence. To the Egyptians, divinity and ideology were inseparable; their deities embodied the principles that sustained both the cosmos and society. Foremost among these was Ma’at, the divine embodiment...
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