Ba

The ba is one of five essential components of the individual (see also ka), which had to be reunited in the afterlife. The ba, like the ka, is a nebulous concept, corresponding among other things to personality—to an aspect of an individual’s distinctiveness. The ba is represented as a bird with a human head (as in cat. nos. 90, 93, and 97), signifying its mobility. The ba ascended during the day and returned each night to be reunited with the body in the underworld. The concept of ba therefore became associated with migratory birds that flew to unknown regions for a time but returned predictably. In a spell in the Book of the Dead the deceased entreats: "See that my ba comes to me from wherever it may be . . . that it might see its body once more and alight on its mummy!" Three ba statues in the exhibition from Meroe (cat nos. 104a–c) represent a very late development in funerary practice (100 b.c.–300 a.d.). These ba statues, depicting the deceased with wings, decorated pyramids built over the burials of individuals of high status.