Ab

Ab


 * Other Names:**

//Ib//, //Yb//, //Haty//: "Foremost One"


 * Hieroglyphics:**



The most important part of the Egyptian soul was thought to be the //Ab//, or heart. The //Ab// was believed to be a drop from the heart of the mother of the child at conception. The heart was thought to be the source of good and evil within a person, the moral awareness and center of thought that could leave the body at will. One of the titles of Osiris, god of the dead, was "He Whose Heart No Longer Beats." After death, the //Ab// could live with the gods, or be eaten by Ammit as the final death if it failed to weigh equally against the feather of Ma’at.

There are many passages in which the deceased implores his heart not to betray him in the Duat to Thoth, the god of judgment: "O my heart which I had from my mother, O my heart which I had upon earth, do not rise up against me as a witness in the presence of the Lord of Balance; do not speak against me concerning what I have done, do not bring up anything against me in the presence of the Great God, Lord of the West."

To the ancient Egyptians, it was the heart and not the brain that was the seat of emotion and thought, and was the key to the afterlife. To lose one's heart was a terrible fate, and to prevent such a calamity no less than seven chapters of the Book of the Dead were dedicated to help prevent this from happening.

However, just in case the heart //was// lost, the dead were often buried with a heart amulet to serve as a substitute heart, shaped like a vase with lug handles - the "handles" correspond with the connection of the veins and arteries to the organ. Heart amulets were often labeled with who they were for, and decorated with images of deities, scarabs, or the Bennu bird (symbols of resurrection.) On some occasions the heart amulet was shaped like a scarab, or topped with a human head.

Heart amulets have been found made of lapis lazuli, siltstone, carnelian, glass, obsidian, feldspar, limestone, gold, jasper, hematite, silver, basalt, amethyst, olivine, serpentine, faience, and alabaster. Heart amulets were also buried with animal mummies. During the reign of Ramses II, Mnevis, the sacred bull, was buried with a quartz heart amulet which bore the inscription "Your heart belongs to you, O Osiris-Mnevis!"

There were many expressions in the Egyptian language which incorporate the word //Ab//, such as //awt-////ab// (happiness - literally, "wideness of heart"), //imy-ab// (favorite - literally, "the one who is in my heart"), x//ak-////ab// (estranged - literally, "truncated of heart") and //desher-ab// (furious - literally, "eaten my heart.") There is a clear favoring of the left side of the body in Egyptian statuary - that is, the left foot is always seen stepping forward. The artistic emphasis on the left side of the body is akin to the concept of "leading with the heart."

**Quotes from the** **Book of the Dead and other sources:**

A Heart of Light

The Heart-Prayer

Parts of the Soul