DOUBLE. — With this designation the Egyptologist G. Maspero indicated an incorporeal entity, called ka by the ancient Egyptians, which accompanied a person from birth like a shadow perfectly identical to the body.
This kind of second personality should not, however, be identified with the soul, called ba (q.v.). Although the ka abandoned the person at death, it was believed to return at intervals to the corpse or to take possession of the deceased’s statues, for which reason funeral offerings were made to the ka of the departed individual, while tombs were called “houses of the ka.”
Yet the essence of the ka remained exceedingly complex, so that after the theory of the double various interpretations arose which explained the ka now as an abstract conception of the vital energy supplied by food (Erman), now as a tutelary genius (Steindorff, Breasted), now as the individual manifestation of the genius of the lineage (Moret), and finally as the personification of sexual energy (Jacobsohn). All these concepts may exist side by side, since the idea of the ka assumed in the course of time various and often ill-defined aspects.