Canopic Jar of the Overseer of the Builders of Amun, Amenhotep

Arts of Africa

New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, reign of Amenhotep II (about 1427–1400 BCE)

Egyptian

During the mummification process, the liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines were removed from the body, separately mummified, and stored in the tomb in four vessels, called Canopic jars. Each organ was placed under the protection of a deity whose head often appears on the stopper of each jar, however the head on this jar depicts the deceased man, named Amenhotep, for whom it was made. Amenhotep held an important civil job as an overseer of building contractors involved in the cult of Amun, the primary god of Thebes (modern-day Luxor in Egypt).

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of Africa

Culture: Ancient Egyptian
Title: Canopic Jar of the Overseer of the Builders of Amun, Amenhotep
Origin: Egypt
Date: Made 1427 BCE–1400 BCE
Medium: terracotta and pigment
Inscriptions: Words spoken by Isis: “I place my arms on that which is in me, I protect the Duamutef which is in me [of] the Overseer of the Builders of Amun, Amenhotep, revered by Duamutef.”
Dimensions: a (jar): 30.4 × 19 × 19 cm (12 × 7 1/5 × 7 1/5 in.) b (lid): 13.3 × 13.3 × 13.3 cm (5 1/4 × 5 1/4 × 5 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Henry H. Getty, Charles L. Hutchinson, and Norman W. Harris
Reference Number: 1892.38a-b
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Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1923), p. 19 (ill.), 20, 64, 156.
Nicholas Reeves, Egyptian Art at Eton College: Selections from the Myers Museum, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; Windsor: Eton College, 1999), p. 24 [as Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago 92.36-39].
Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 21, fig. 5.
Nicholas Reeves, “Amenhotep, Overseer of the Builders of Amun: An Eighteenth-Dynasty Burial Reassembled,” in the Metropolitan Museum Journal 48, 1 (2013), p. 14, fig. 12.

Art Institute of Chicago, Grave Goods from Ancient Cultures, Gallery 141, November 9, 1991 - May 17, 1992.
Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 154A, April 20, 1994 - February 6, 2012.
Art Institute of Chicago, When the Greeks Ruled: Egypt After Alexander the Great, October 31, 2013 - July 27, 2014.

The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in Egypt, 1892; price reimbursed by Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson, 1892.

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