The King is Dead, Long Live the King!: The Iconography of the Royal <i>Ka</i> until the End of the Old Kingdom

This paper presents a catalogue of sources to support the central focus of research about the generic imagery of the royal ka until the end of the Old Kingdom. Regardless of the fragmentary condition of the majority of its monuments, there is an early innovation in pictorial decorations concerning kingship propaganda expressed in mortuary temples. The study aims to reinterpret the crucial complexities of Old Kingdom representations of the royal ka and provide additional suggestions for interpretations based on comparing the thematic contexts of these reconstructions that might parallel similar ones of the same period or afterwards – e.g. the pictorial development of the royal ka in the smiting context in all epochs. Perhaps these observations could help in comprehending the functions and roles of the royal ka .