Canopic jars are receptacles for the embalmed viscera of a mummified person. The stomach, lungs, liver, and intestines were removed from the body to eliminate moisture and thereby preserve the body. Canopic jars were made in sets of four, one for each of the organs. The name “canopic” is a misnomer. In the town of Canopus in the Delta, there was a local cult of the god Osiris, who was shown in the form of a human-headed jar. That image was falsely equated with these human-headed funerary vessels.^[1]1

This set of jars (fig. 1) belonged to an official named Amenhotep, who served as the Overseer of the Builders of Amun and Overseer of Works in the Temple of (the goddess) Mut, in the Karnak Temple complex. The jars came from his tomb in Western Thebes (now Luxor). The exact location of the tomb is not known.^[2]2

The jars are of a uniform size and shape, with a tapered base that flares upward to a rounded shoulder. The stoppers are high domes with modeled faces. Both the jars and stoppers are made of marl, a superior type of clay that reflected a greater investment than other types because it was mined in the hills away from the Nile Valley and it had to be fired at a higher temperature than Nile silt clay.3

These jars are the product of collaboration between a potter, a sculptor, and a painter. The potter threw the jars and the lids on a wheel. The stoppers were formed as bowls, with walls thick enough that the facial features could be pinched from the clay. The faces may also have been augmented with more clay. Although figural canopic stoppers were made by the thousands, they were individually modeled, not molded, so they were the work of sculptors. In the case of the stoppers for Amenhotep’s jars, the use of yellow pigment for the flesh and the treatment of the eyes indicate that they were meant to imitate the appearance of painted limestone statues, and were therefore considered to be little statues rather than just stoppers.^[3] The hair of each stopper was painted flat black, and the junction between the hair and the flesh, and the details of the ears, were outlined in red, a feature that is also seen on cartonnage masks (see cats. 107–9), marking the hand of a painter. The whites of the eyes, or sclera, were painted with white paint incorporating a small amount of Egyptian blue, as revealed by visible-induced luminescence imaging (figs. 2–3). The practice of mixing Egyptian blue in white paint was observed in other examples.^[4] Although originally believed to be a Greco-Roman practice, these Canopic jars are, to date, the first known example of the use of Egyptian blue in the white of the eyes. The significance of this discovery within an Egyptian context is still under investigation; however, it is worth noticing that the use of the blue pigment was otherwise not detected elsewhere on the stoppers.^[5]
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Each stopper, although of the same general appearance, shows variation in the size of the face, the position of the ears, the facial expression, and the direction of its gaze because it was individually modeled. The cosmetic lines around the eyes are similar in style to those found on Amenhotep’s funerary mask and coffin lid.^[6]5

Texts

The four lines of text on the body of each jar are recitations of promises made by one of four goddesses (Isis, Nephthys, Serket, and Neith) to protect the organ within the jar. Traditionally, each goddess was paired with one of the Four Sons of Horus, each of whom was associated with one of the organs. On these jars, the appropriate Son of Horus is named in the text.^[7]
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Additional Views of Cats. 101–4

For example, the text on the jar for Isis (cat. 103) reads: “Words said by Isis, ‘I place my arms on that which is in me, I protect the Duamutef [one of the Sons of Horus] which is in me [of] the Overseer of the Builder[s] of Amun, Amenhotep, revered by Duamutef.’” Some canopic jars of the Middle Kingdom have arms luted (attached with slip) to the outside, thereby manifesting the protective embrace of the goddess. The name of each goddess is noted on the interior of its corresponding stopper to ensure that each stopper was matched with the correct jar and its contents (fig. 4). Scraps of linen still adhere to the jar for Serket (cat. 101), giving proof that it, and presumably the entire set, fulfilled their intended function.^[8] Sets of canopic jars were usually stored in a segmented chest that was deposited in the burial chamber with the mummy.
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History of Canopic Jars

Recent excavations at Hierakonpolis have shown that the Egyptians experimented with ways to preserve the body as early as about 3300 BCE, but the first evidence for evisceration is provided by a chest with four recesses recovered from the tomb of the mother of King Khufu, Queen Hetepheres, who reigned about 2590 BCE.^[9] The earliest known jars come from the tomb of Queen Meresankh III (about 2550 BCE). They are made of limestone, with flaring shoulders and undecorated, domed lids. In the early Middle Kingdom, the undecorated lids were sometimes replaced by four human heads. Initially the jars were inscribed only with the names of the deceased, but by the Middle Kingdom they were marked with the names of the Four Sons of Horus and have either four human heads, or three human heads and a falcon head. Occasionally in late Dynasty 18 and then consistently in Dynasty 19 and afterward, the sets of jars have four different heads that represent the Four Sons of Horus: a human head (representing Imsety, who was associated with the liver); the head of a jackal (representing Duamutef, who was associated with the stomach); the head of a falcon (representing Qebehsenuef, who was associated with the intestines); and the head of an ape (representing Hapy, who was associated with the lungs). Each of the Four Sons are associated with protective goddesses: Isis, Neith, Serket, and Nephthys, respectively.8

Objects from the Tomb of Amenhotep

Objects from the burial of Amenhotep are widely dispersed. A fragment of the lid of his coffin is in the Eton College Myers Collection, England; the bottom of his coffin is in the Victoria Museum, Uppsala, Sweden; his funerary mask is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; a shabti is in the ISAC Museum at the University of Chicago; and sections of his Book of the Dead are in museums in New York, London, Boston, Amsterdam, Newport, and Stockholm. Clay funerary cones that once decorated the facade of his tomb are also documented, although their current whereabouts are unknown.^[10]9

Provenance

101.
The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in Egypt, 1892.10

102.
The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in Egypt, 1892.11

103.
The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in Egypt, 1892.12

104.
The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in Egypt, 1892.13

Publication History

101.
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 19 (ill.), 20, 64, 156n1.14

Nicholas Reeves, Egyptian Art at Eton College: Selections from the Myers Museum, exh. cat. (Windsor: Eton College, 1999), 24 (referred to as Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago 92.36).15

Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago, by Karen Manchester (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012), 21, fig. 5.16

Nicholas Reeves, “Amenhotep, Overseer of Builders of Amun: An Eighteenth-Dynasty Burial Reassembled,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 48, no. 1 (2013): 14, fig. 12.17

102.
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 19 (ill.), 20, 64, 156n1.18

Nicholas Reeves, Egyptian Art at Eton College: Selections from the Myers Museum, exh. cat. (Windsor: Eton College, 1999), 24 (referred to as Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago 92.37).19

Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago, by Karen Manchester (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012), 21, fig. 5.20

Nicholas Reeves, “Amenhotep, Overseer of Builders of Amun: An Eighteenth-Dynasty Burial Reassembled,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 48, no. 1 (2013): 14, fig. 12.21

103.
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 19 (ill.), 20, 64, 156n1.22

Nicholas Reeves, Egyptian Art at Eton College: Selections from the Myers Museum, exh. cat. (Windsor: Eton College, 1999), 24 (referred to as Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago 92.38).23

Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago, by Karen Manchester (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012), 21, fig. 5.24

Nicholas Reeves, “Amenhotep, Overseer of Builders of Amun: An Eighteenth-Dynasty Burial Reassembled,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 48, no. 1 (2013): 14, fig. 12.25

Giovanni Verri and Hariclia Brecoulaki, “‘From the Face and the Expression of the Eyes’: Multidisciplinary Studies of Pigments in Ancient Greek and Roman Painted Surfaces,” Technai: An International Journal for Ancient Science and Technology 14 (2023): 58, fig. 1.26

Ashley F. Arico and Giovanni Verri, “Eternity’s Gaze,” in “Eyes in Art,” Art Institute of Chicago (blog), September 24, 2024.27

104.
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 19 (ill.), 20, 64, 156n1.28

Nicholas Reeves, Egyptian Art at Eton College: Selections from the Myers Museum, exh. cat. (Windsor: Eton College, 1999), 24 (referred to as Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago 92.39).29

Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago, by Karen Manchester (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012), 21, fig. 5.30

Nicholas Reeves, “Amenhotep, Overseer of Builders of Amun: An Eighteenth-Dynasty Burial Reassembled,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 48, no. 1 (2013): 14, fig. 12.
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