The Ba bird is loosely defined as the ‘soul’ of the departed, but that does not quite describe it. Here is an explanation by the Metropolitan Museum:
The ba is an aspect of a person’s non-physical being. After death, the ba was able to travel out from the tomb, but it had to periodically return to the tomb and be reunited with the mummy. The ba was usually represented as a bird with a human head, and sometimes with human arms.
Combined with the silhouette portrait, the Ba bird becomes like a memory of the deceased person, ever-present and faithfully returning to some kind of embodiment in our minds.
