LATE PERIOD, DYNASTY XXVI-XXX, 664-343 B.C.

Details

A SET OF FOUR EGYPTIAN LIMESTONE CANOPIC JARS
LATE PERIOD, DYNASTY XXVI-XXX, 664-343 B.C.
Each jar with a cylindrical body swelling at the shoulders and tapering to the flat base, the conforming lids well sculpted in the form of the Four Sons of Horus, including baboon-headed Hapy, human-headed Imsety, falcon-headed Qebehsenuef and jackal-headed Duamutef; each preserving pigment for the eyes, the interior of the vessels summarily hollowed
Tallest: 14¾ in. (37.5 cm.) high (4)

Provenance

with Jos Lipplaa, Galerie de Sfinx, Amsterdam.
with Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, prior to 1981.
John W. Kluge, New York and Virginia.
with Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, 1988.

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Lot Essay

Canopic jars were used to house the viscera, or internal organs, which were removed from the body of the deceased during the process of mummification. The jars came in sets of four, one for each organ (liver, lungs, stomach, intestines) to be wrapped and placed separately; and they were each considered designated under the protection of one of the Four Sons of Horus. According to Bierbrier (p. 80 in D'Auria, Lacovara and Roehrig, Mummies & Magic: The Funerary Arts of Ancient Egypt), "early Egyptologists called these jars 'canopic,' as an allusion to the Greek myth of a sailor named Canopus who died in Egypt, and was worshipped there in the form of a jar."

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