Why was the heart so important in ancient Egypt?

The ib: the seat of thought, memory and conscience. It was left in the body and weighed at the judgment.

What the sign shows: An animal’s heart, drawn like a small jar.
How Gerald Massey read it in 1907: Among the charms buried with the dead, Massey singles out the stone heart as a statement about the life just lived.
Where you see it today: We still say “heavy-hearted” and “light-hearted”.
Where it stands in Massey’s book: Massey names it 157 times across the book. Book IV, p. 201: “Eaters of shades and the second heart”; Book I, p. 17: “The giant with no heart”; Book III, p. 136b: “A beetle for a new heart”.
Signs that look like it: Ka, Shen ring and Sun disk. The app’s Symbol Trainer sets them side by side, so the eye learns to tell them apart.
In Massey’s words: “The heart of green basalt showed that the deceased in this life was sound-hearted.” (Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (1907), Book II, p. 115)
In the app: Trainer › Symbol Trainer › Heart. 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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