The Egyptians believed that a living man consisted of a body, a Ka or ghost, and a Ba or soul. At death, the Ka and Ba were supposed to be liberated; but it was hoped that a day would nevertheless come when the Ka, which was the element in which the life of the deceased person was specially believed to reside, would come back to the body and effect its resurrection. Hence the care with which a body was embalmed and preserved from putrefaction. Accidents, however, might happen, thought the ancient Egyptians. The embalmed mummy might perish, it might be destroyed. What would the unfortunate Ka do, if it returned and found the mummy of its former body annihilated? A way out of this difficulty quickly occurred to the nimble minds of these imaginative people. If the mummy had perished, they thought, the Ka might possibly enter an effigy of its former body, provided that effigy were sufficiently lifelike. In this way the realistic Ka-statues were introduced, and for fear lest even these might perish, wealthy people would sometimes multiply their number to what would seem a ridiculous extent. Once they were manufactured, these Ka-statues would be placed far away from the sight of living man, in the tomb of the departed person, and in this way his resurrection was supposed to be ensured.[72] For the Egyptians could imagine no world better than their own. And even a resurrection could but occur amid surroundings which were as like as possible to those of everyday life on earth. The realism of the Ka-statue of the Lady Nophret, therefore, need not frighten us. On the contrary, it only helps to throw the transfiguration and power of King Khephrën's diorite statue into greater relief. The Egyptians knew perfectly well that a Ka-statue was only a duplication, a copy, and a repetition of reality, and they knew also that its proper place was underground and out of sight.[73] If Lady Nophret and her companion Ka-statues had never been found, however, we might have believed, as many have believed, that the conventionalism of Egyptian sculpture was beneath instead of very much above Nature.