The Ka — Life-Force
A spirit-double born with you that still needs feeding after you die.
Also: ka · kꜣ · life-force · spirit double · vital force · for the ka of
Egyptians did not think of a person as a single soul but as several parts. The ka was the life-force or spirit-double, present from birth, that needed nourishment to continue — which is why the dead were given food offerings, 'for the ka of' the deceased. To 'go to one's ka' was a way of saying one had died. The ka had to be sustained for the dead to flourish.
In short
One of the principal Egyptian components of a person — the ka, a vital life-force or spirit-double that comes into being with a person, requires sustenance (including funerary offerings), and lives on after death.
Where it’s found
Pyramid Texts; Old Kingdom offering formulae and tomb inscriptions
Read it in the Egyptian texts
The passages in our corpus where this idea is discussed — each opens in our reader with the Egyptian transliteration and the English translation side by side.
How the idea developed across Egypt
Attested from the Old Kingdom (Pyramid Texts; the offering formula 'for the ka of NN'); a stable feature of funerary belief throughout Egyptian history.
The ka, ba, and akh (and the shadow and name) are distinct components and should not be flattened into the single English word 'soul.'