Much has been written about Kemetic belief in the resurrection of the physical body as evidenced by the practice of mummification and even the passage about not letting the body decay which is cited above. But although there are passages about the body not decaying and about one knitting oneself back together bone by bone and member by member, there are also passages which stress that it is the spirit that is immortal and that “the soul belongs to heaven; the body belongs to earth” (Budge 1960, 68). Budge (1960, 69) is correct in asserting that “the preservation of the corruptible body … was in some way connected with life in the world to come, and its existence was necessary to insure eternal life, otherwise the prayers recited to this end would have been futile and the time- honored custom of mummifying the dead would have no meaning.” But it is still not clear why the preservation of the body was necessary. A plausible explanation is that the ancient Egyptians believed that the various physical and spiritual parts of the human personality-ka (vital energy), ba (soul), khet (body), akh (transformed spirit), ren (name), ib (heart/mind), and shuit (shadow) “were bound together inseparably and the welfare of any single one of them concerned the welfare of all” (Budge 1960, 81). Therefore, what one has here is a complex set of beliefs which unite the physical and spiritual in a holistic conception of reciprocal effect (Finnestad 1986).

Ma’at, the Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt