Dispute Between a Man and His Ba

The Dispute between a man and his Ba or The Debate Between a Man and his Soul is an ancient Egyptian text probably written during the rule of Amenemhat III in the Middle Kingdom. However, the composition took place earlier because corrections and misreadings in the existing text show it to be a copy.

The text is considered to fall into the genre of sebayt, a form of ancient Egyptian wisdom literature. The text takes the form of a dialogue between a man struggling to come to terms with the hardship of life, and his ba soul. The text has received significant scholarly attention, and has been translated to English at least 26 times.

The text has survived in four papyrus fragments, containing of 184 columns of hieratic writing. The surviving text is not complete, and it has been estimated to miss ca. 29 columns. Further fragments were published in 2017 including the previously absent beginning of the text.