Sale!
$2,424.00 USD

Dating back to the Third Intermediate Period/Ptolemaic period (ca. 837-30 BCE) this is an authentic Ancient Egyptian canopic jar lid, depicting Imseti - one of the Four Sons of Horus!

Imseti (also transcribed as Imset) is a funeral diety, associated with the canopic jar that contained the human liver.

Ancient Egyptians believed that the liver acted as the seat of human emotions, so even though the other canopic deities were personified as animals, Imseti stood alone with a human visage.

His name was translated to "the kindly one" in ancient Egyptian, as he was associated with broken hearts and deaths caused by excessive emotion and grief.

This canopic jar lid has been scientifically tested using thermoluminescence, revealing it was fired ~2400 years BP (+/- 600 years). The scientific study is included with purchase. 

This artifact measures ~4.8" tall x 4" wide and can be shipped worldwide. 

Canopic jars were an important part of the mummification and burial process - the preservation and storage of a person's organs for the afterlife. 

Canopic jars came in sets of four and despite originally being quite plain, by the Ninteenth dynasty each of the four lids would depict one of Horus' four sons as the guardians of the organs. 

The jars were used to ensure the safekeeping of the stomach, intestines, lungs and liver as it was believed they'd be needed in the afterlife.

The heart, believed to be the seat of the soul, was left inside of the body (often under the protection of a scarab) to ensure it would remain intact for the Weighing Ceremony - judgement in the afterlife.