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Among
the ancient Egyptians, canopic jars were covered funerary
vases, normally composed of clay, intended to keep the viscera
of mummified corpses. All the viscera were not kept in a single
canopic jar, but rather each organ in its own.
In addition to hieroglyphs, figures of gods was often painted
on the jars. These were the four sons of Horus, the guardians
of the organs:
• Imset (depicted as a human) was responsible for the
liver;
• Hapi (a baboon) for the lungs;
• Duamutef (a jackal) for the stomach;
• Kebechsenef (a falcon) for the viscera of the
lower body.
Alternatively, the jars themselves or their lids were made
in the shape of the gods.
The Egyptians considered the heart to be the seat of the soul,
so it was the only organ not removed from the body. The brain
was not preserved, it was held responsible for producing mucus,
but was liquefied and completely drained from the corpse through
the nostrils.
• Pharaoh
Sometimes the covers of the jars were modelled after or painted
to resemble the head of Anubis, the embalming god. These vases
have an elongated form, and surviving examples of them can
be seen in some museums. The canopic jars were buried in tombs
together with the sarcophagus of the deceased, in order to
preserve the integrity of the entire body after death, the
viscera were extracted to prevent the putrefaction of the
corpse.
By extension, due to the similarity of their form, some Etruscan
cinerary urns were also called canopic jars, made of clay
or bronze, often put on the replica of a throne into the tombs,
and with a male or female head modelled on them, representing
the deceased's face with the handles having the form of arms.
The name "canopic jar"
Canopus was an ancient Egyptian coastal town in the Nile Delta.
Its site is in the eastern outskirts of modern-day Alexandria,
around 25 kilometres from the centre of that city.
The god Osiris was worshipped at Canopus under the form of
a vase with a human head. Through an old misunderstanding,
the name "canopic jar" was applied by early Egyptologists
to any vase with a human or animal head.
See:
• List
of Cities in Egypt
• Cairo
• Sharm
El Sheikh
• King Tut - Tutankhamun
•
Nile
• Egyptian Hieroglyph
• Egyptian Museum
• Mummy
• Giza
• Great Sphinx of Giza
• Great Pyramid of Giza
• Sea Peoples
• Ramesses III
• Ramesses IV
* Horus
* Alabaster
* Sarcophagus
* List of Egypt-related topics
• Map of Egypt
• Economy of Egypt
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cnopic, anopic, canpoic, camopic,
canopci, canopc, canoic,
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Canopic Jar".
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