What is the ba in ancient Egypt?

The ba: the part of a person that can leave the tomb by day and return to the body at night.

What the sign shows: A bird with a human head.
How Gerald Massey read it in 1907: Massey plays on the word itself. Ba, he says, means “to be”, and the bee, the ram and the goat that “say ba” all became signs of the soul.
What scholars say now: Today the Egyptian word ba is not thought to be related to the English verb “to be”; the likeness is a coincidence of sound.
Where you see it today: The human-headed bird hovering over the mummy in tomb paintings.
Where it stands in Massey’s book: Massey names it 22 times across the book. Book I, p. 14: “Telling the bees”; Book I, p. 42: “An alphabet of animals”; Book IV, p. 201: “Eaters of shades and the second heart”.
Signs that look like it: Akh, Benu bird and Ka. The app’s Symbol Trainer sets them side by side, so the eye learns to tell them apart.
In Massey’s words: “In that we find the word Ba signifies to be, Ba therefore is a form of to be.” (Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (1907), Book I, p. 40)
In the app: Trainer › Symbol Trainer › Ba. The app’s Symbol Trainer reads 42 signs this way, each with Massey’s own words and the page they stand on.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

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