Canopic Jar with Lid in the Form of a Human Head New KingdomEgypt
Description
Object Label: Canopic Jars The practice of mummifying human remains led to the development of a new kind of jar. During the mummification process, the liver, stomach, intestines, and lungs had to be removed to allow the corpse’s interior to dry. In the Fourth Dynasty, the Egyptians began storing these vital organs in four separate vessels, called canopic jars, and burying them with the mummy. Eighteenth Dynasty craftsmen started making canopic jar lids representing the four “Sons of Horus”—deities specifically charged with defending the organs. The human-headed god Imsety protected the liver. Caption: Canopic Jar with Lid in the Form of a Human Head, ca.1539–1353 B.C.E.. Limestone, clay, pigment, Other (A): 10 1/4 x 4 5/16 in. (26.1 x 11 cm) Other (B): 5 7/16 x 3 1/8 in. (13.8 x 8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.1733Ea-b. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
A machine reading of the photograph made Jul 2026: deities, names, signs and a description as the model saw them. Not curatorial; treat it as the model's best reading, not authority.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 37.1733Ea-b tier-2
- BKM-Object 4176 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- 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.