Ba - bird with human head wandered the Earth by day,
returned to (mummified) body at night
Ka - spiritual duplicate in human form, travelled back
and forth between the earth and the "other world" - imperishable
stars, Duat...?
Ka survived so long as body remained - Ka made
occasional revisits -reunited with Ba and mummy
If the Ka might be considered as "life force" then the
Ba existed between worlds. There was a third state, the
Akh.
Variously translated as "intelligence", "shining",
"ilumination", "irradiation", "the shining one" or "the shining
form",
it seems that the Ka, in successfully passing through
many stages / trials in the afterlife, eventually graduated to
this final stage, the Akh,
signified unification with Ra.
So, the eventual goal in the afterlife seems to have been to
become celestial entity, living among the stars as a shining light.
For more, try Walk
Like an Egyptian
Ra sailed across the heavens by day, and sailed under
the world by night
A dead Pharaoh may also sail by day and by night,
necessitating two boats
Mandjet by day
Mesektet by night
Other boats would enable his Ba/Ka to sail around
Egypt, especially to Abydos, dedicated to Osiris
Funerary Boat, British Museum
Bauval and Gilbert, in their book The Orion Mystery,
propose that the Pharaohs of the 3rd and 4th Dynasties were creating
a replica of the Heavens on Earth, at and around Giza.
In particular, the three Pyramids at Giza - Khufu's, Khafre's and
Menkaure's, are suggested as representing the three stars in Orion's
Belt, with the Nile representing the Milky Way.
Bauval and Gilbert also make a make a cogent case that the purpose
of the four so-called ventilation shafts, found only in Khufu's
Pyramid, was to serve as star-shafts, pointing to particular
stars.
Each of the shafts pointed, around 2,500 years BC, at a
different star, at different times of the year.
Precession means that, today, the alignment does not hold.
Each star was associated with Osirian Mythology, and therefore
with the annual renewal of Egypt implicit in the Nile Inundation.
Winding back the clock to c.2500 BC, allowing for precession and
proper motion
4 stars culminate directly over each shaft on different days
of the, then, year
2 of them, Alnitak and Sirius correspond to Osiris and Isis
in Egyptian myth
Khufu's Great Pyramid and the "Starshaft"
Alignments.
Note that the 4 shafts did
not point at their
respective stars all at the same time.
These different dates could suggest:
alternative dates for Great Pyramid construction,
or...
Uncharacteristically sloppy building,
or...
The shafts were set to celebrate events in the,
then, future, or...
Nothing at all
Note also that, although the shafts from the upper
King's Chamber reach out to the surface
of the Pyramid, those from the lower Queen's Chamber do not.
Looking carefully at the picture, it can be seen that
the shafts start off horizontaly,
before turning upwards at their respective elevation angles. None
of the shafts could
have been used for sighting stars
Taken together, these various factors may cast some
doubts on the validity of
the interpretation of the shafts as "starshafts" (click for a
different interpretation
altogether)
Running with the idea of the shafts as pointing at stars, at least
for the moment, we can suggest what significance the pointing dates
might have had:-
When Sirius/Isis culminates = full womanhood
Sirius then over Southern Shaft in "Queen's" Chamber, 12th
September, due South.
Osiris/Orion "inseminates" Sirius/Isis
Dawn Culmination of Sirius,
2450BC, Sep 12th, 5.25am. Az 180, El 39.3 = QC, Southern
Shaft
Using the Redshift astronomy program
Culmination, or transit, is the point at which a star reaches
its highest point in the sky.
By definition, this occurs when the star is either due South
or due North.
Culmination coincides with dawn only under very specific
circumstances, pinpointing a particular time, day, year and
location
Heliacal rising of Sirius/Isis - 5th July - 9 months later:-
Coincides with Nile Inundation.
Rebirth of Sirius/Isis coincides with rebirth of Egypt
Inundation was the start of ancient Egyptian New Year
Khufu's Pyramid Chambers,
with Shaft Alignments and Dates
Note that this figure shows the shaft slope angles, and the dates
when dawn culminations occurred. It does not signify that each shaft
pointed precisely at each star on the dates given.Accurate pointing
would occur only for the years shown for each shaft on the pyramid
diagram above.
Nonetheless, it is possible that the dawn culmination dates were
noted by, and were important to, the ancient Egyptians. One
interpretation of the significance of the various dates in respect of
their annual celebration of annual Osirian fertility rites, is
tabulated below:-
Timetable of Stellar-synchronous Events
C = culmination, R = (heliacal) rising
KC = King's Chamber, QC = Queen's Chamber
