browse these categories for related items...
Directory: Hidden: Viewable: Pre AD 1000: Item # 1390853

Click to view additional online photographs

Explorer Ancient Art
View Seller Profile
P.O. Box 60901
Staten Island, NY 10306
347-645-6102

Guest Book

Representing Imseti, was the human head god and was one of the four sons of Horus, who held the liver. With long lappets, defined ears, strong nose and prominent facial details. Third Intermediate Period, probably 21st Dynasty, 1069 BC to 945 BC. 10 1/2 inches high. Intact. Possibly from a workshop. Purchased in Egypt in 1975, by Dr. M. R. of New York. Purchased from a well-respected, licensed antiquities dealer in Luxor named Mohamed Hassani, whose shop was right next to the Old Winter Palace Hotel. By the time of the 21st Dynasty, there was a great deal of looting of the tombs and often the robbers broke the canopic jars in their search for treasure, and in the process destroying the internal organs they contained. Soon, it was realized that canopic jars were not a good way to preserve the organs, and this led to a change in mummification. The embalmers still removed the internal organs and dehydrated them, but now they rolled them into packets and then replaced them in the abdominal cavity, where they would be safer. So now there was no real need for conventional canopic jars. However, ancient Egyptians still wanted the protection of the four sons of Horus, so they started carving "false canopic jars" -- jars that still had the heads of the sons of Horus, but didn't have to be hollowed out because they didn't have to contain anything.