About this episode

This episode explores the concept of the Akh in ancient Egyptian belief, discussing its significance and the journey to achieving it.

Not everyone gets to become effective. Not everyone gets to matter after they’re gone. Not everyone becomes a saint. Your Ka, your Ba, your Ren — those showed up the moment you were born, automatic, no work required, the way your name did. The Akh is different. You had to earn it, build it. Amber and I have been in this journey about the different parts of the human personality for weeks now. This is the fourth episode in our series on the anatomy of the Egyptian soul, and definitely the hardest one so far. The Ka and the Ba you can make a go at describing. The Akh doesn’t allow that. It’s not really even a noun. It’s closer to a verb, the same energy as the Egyptian word kheper , “becoming,” transformation-in-progress. This podcast convo ended up going places I didn’t expect: gender, hubris, ecological grief even, and a king who tried to grab the most fleeting, liminal power in the whole Egyptian cosmos and hold it in his own two hands like in that Guardians of the Galaxy movie except without the happy ending. Akh as Photosynthesis In his dictionary of Middle Egyptian words, Faulkner tells us that akh means to be effective, glorious, useful, profitable. An Akh is what happens…

People in this episode

Host: Kara Cooney

Guest: Amber

Topics covered

• ancient Egyptian soul
• Akh
• transformation
• gender
• hubris
• ecological grief

Keywords

• Akh
• Ka
• Ba
• ancient Egypt
• soul
• transformation
• hubris
• ecological grief

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Guardians of the Galaxy, Middle Egyptian

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Afterlives of Ancient Egypt with Kara Cooney podcast page.