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Lot 227

An Egyptian wood dummy canopic jar

Antiquities
3 July 2019, 10:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £3,812.50 inc. premium

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An Egyptian wood dummy canopic jar
Third Intermediate Period, circa 1069-664 B.C.
In the form of the human-headed Son of Horus, Imsety, with large ears and the eyes and brows in added black, a single column of hieroglyphs in black running vertically down the front reading 'The Osiris Imsety', an incised line indicating the division between the jar and the lid, 21.5cm high

Footnotes

Provenance:
Alice (1897-1991) and Yngve (1918-1974) Lyttkens collection, acquired in Egypt in the 1950s, probably 1957-1958; and thence by descent.
Anonymous sale; Stockholms Auktionsverk, December 2015, lot 345516.
Private collection, Sweden, acquired at the above sale.

During the Third Intermediate Period canopic jars were not used to store the mummified organs of the deceased, as a practice developed of returning the embalmed viscera to the body. However, the use of canopic jars was such an essential element of tomb ritual that models of jars were used in their absence. These 'dummy' canopic jars were often carved out of a single block of stone or wood, and were not hollowed out. Imsety was the deity associated with protecting the liver.

For similar examples of dummy jars in limestone, see C. Roehrig, Mummies and Magic, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1988, p. 164-165, no. 117.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

An Anatolian marble idol
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