Accordingly, small images of labourers were buried with the dead, and it was supposed that their "doubles" or shadows would assist him in his labours.

The supposition rested on a theory which ascribed to all things, whether animate or inanimate, a double or reflection which corresponded to the thing itself in every particular.
It was like a shadow, except that it was invisible to mortal eyes, and did not perish with the object which had projected it.
The "double" was called _ka_, and the _ka_ of a man was his exact representation in the other world, a spiritual representation, it is true, but nevertheless one which had the same feelings, the same needs, and the same moral nature as himself.

It thus differed from the _ba_ or "soul," which flew away to the gods on the dissolution of the body.

It was, in fact, the Personality of the man.
From the outset the Pharaonic Egyptians were a nation of readers and writers.

Nothing is more astonishing than the way in which the simplest articles of daily use are covered with inscriptions.