Canopic jar with a jackal-headed lid

Canopic jar with a jackal-headed lid

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Canopic jars were made to contain the embalmed viscera removed from the body in the process of mummification. The organs were placed under the protection of the Four Sons of Horus, whose heads form the lids of the jars: Hapy (baboon-headed), Imsety (human-headed), Duamutef (jackal-headed), and Kebehsenuef (falcon-headed). In turn these gods were under the protection of the goddesses Nephthys, Isis, Neith, and Selket, respectively, as the inscriptions on the jars state. This jar was under the protection of Duamutef and Neith and would probably have contained the stomach.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Canopic jar with a jackal-headed lidCanopic jar with a jackal-headed lidCanopic jar with a jackal-headed lidCanopic jar with a jackal-headed lidCanopic jar with a jackal-headed lid

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.