Canopic jar

Canopic jars were used by the ancient Egyptians during the mummification process to store and preserve the viscera of their owner for the afterlife. They were commonly either carved from limestone or were made of pottery. These jars were used by the ancient Egyptians from the time of the Old Kingdom up until the time of the Late Period or the Ptolemaic Period, by which time the viscera were simply wrapped and placed with the body. The viscera were not kept in a single canopic jar: each jar was reserved for specific organs. The name "canopic" reflects the mistaken association by early Egyptologists with the Greek legend of Canopus.

Canopic jars of the Old Kingdom were rarely inscribed, and had a plain lid. In the Middle Kingdom inscriptions became more usual, and the lids were often in the form of human heads. By the Nineteenth dynasty each of the four lids depicted one of the four sons of Horus, as guardians of the organs.

Use and design

The canopic jars were four in number, each for the safekeeping of particular human organs: the stomach, intestines, lungs, and liver, all of which, it was believed, would be needed in the afterlife. There was no jar for the heart: the Egyptians believed it to be the seat of the soul, and so it was left inside the body.

Canopus, Egypt

Canopus or Canobus was an Ancient Egyptian coastal town, located in the Nile Delta. Its site is in the eastern outskirts of modern-day Alexandria, around 25 kilometres from the centre of that city.

Canopus was located on the western bank at the mouth of the westernmost branch of the Delta – known as the Canopic or Heracleotic branch. It belonged to the seventh Egyptian Nome, known as 'Menelaites', and later as 'Canopites', after it.

It was the principal port in Egypt for Greek trade before the foundation of Alexandria. Nevertheless, it was rivalled in this respect by Naucratis, and by Heracleion, the latter city only discovered by archaeologists in 2000.

Its old Egyptian name was Pikuat; the Greeks called it Kanobos, or Kanopos (Greek: Κάνωπος), after a mythological commander of a Greek fleet supposedly buried there.

Pre-hellenistic history

The name of Canopus appears in the first half of the 6th century BC in a poem by Solon.

Early Egyptological excavations some 2 or 3 km from the area known today as Abu Qir have revealed extensive traces of the city with its quays, and granite monuments with the name of Ramesses II, but they may have been brought in for the adornment of the place at a later date.