Cleveland Museum of Art (Egyptian) · other

Canopic Jar with Man's Head

Source of record: Cleveland Museum of Art (Egyptian) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

[Egypt, Late period (715–332 BCE), Dynasty 26] In the process of mummification, the liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines were removed, separately embalmed, and stored in specialized jars known as canopic jars (after a sailor in Greek mythology, who died at the town of Canopus in the Nile Delta and was worshipped there in the form of a human-headed jar). Each organ was identified with one of four funerary deities collectively known as the Sons of Horus: the liver with Imsety (man's head), the lungs with Hapy (baboon's head), the stomach with Duamutef (jackal's head), and the intestines with Qebehsenuef (falcon's head). It was their duty to protect the deceased and restore to him his body parts in the hereafter.

Connections

Cross-references (2)

  • Wikidata Q60757028 tier-1
  • CMA-id 102370 tier-2
About this record's data
  • From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Cleveland Museum of Art (Egyptian).
  • AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
  • Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
  • Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.