The Shadow & the Name — Two More Parts of the Person
Keep someone's name alive and they live on; chisel it out of the stone and you attack the person themselves.
Also: shadow · shut · šwt · name · ren · rn · parts of the person · name erasure · damnatio memoriae · preservation of the name
Beyond the ka, ba, and akh, Egyptians counted further parts of a person — among them the shadow and the name. The shadow (šwt) was treated as a genuine, mobile aspect of a being, offering presence and protection. The name (rn) was no mere label: to keep a person's name alive — spoken, written, inscribed on a monument — was to keep that person in existence, while to hack a name out of the stone was to attack the person themselves, a deliberate 'erasure of memory.' Preserving the name was one of the deepest Egyptian hopes for survival.
In short
Two further components of the Egyptian person alongside the ka, ba, and akh: the shadow (šwt), a real protective aspect of a being, and the name (rn), whose preservation guaranteed continued existence and whose deliberate erasure was a form of destruction (damnatio memoriae).
Where it’s found
Funerary texts (Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, Book of the Dead) referencing the shadow and name; attested name-erasures on monuments
How the idea developed across Egypt
The shadow (šwt) and name (rn) appear among the components of the person from the Old Kingdom onward (e.g. in funerary texts and spells); the practice of erasing names from monuments (a form of damnatio memoriae) is attested across Egyptian history — most famously against Hatshepsut and the Amarna kings. (Allen, Middle Egyptian; Taylor, Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt.)
The shadow (šwt) and name (rn) are two of several distinct components of the person, alongside the body, ka, ba, and akh; do not flatten them into 'soul.' Name-erasure (damnatio memoriae) is an act, not a separate belief — note it as the negative counterpart of name-preservation.