ARTIC-EG
Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian) · vessel
Canopic Jar of Amenhotep
Description
One of a set of four jars that belonged to Amenhotep, who oversaw architectural projects in the temple of Amun at Karnak (in present-day Luxor). Now empty, the jars once held Amenhotep’s liver, lungs, intestines, and stomach, which were removed during the mummification process. Each jar has a hand-sculpted stopper that may represent its owner or one of the four sons of Horus, a set of gods associated with these vital organs. An inscription in hieroglyphs on each container promises divine protection over its contents by a different goddess: Selket, Neith, Nephthys, or Isis.
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A painted canopic jar with a human-headed lid (mummiform head style) and bands of vertical hieroglyphic text on the jar body.
The object appears to be a ceramic canopic jar: a rounded, light-colored body with painted hieroglyphic columns across the front. The top is shaped as a human head/lid with dark hair and a gold/beige face, with the face centered and framed by dark painted hair or wig. The hieroglyphs are arranged in multiple vertical lines, though the individual signs cannot be confidently read from this image resolution. There is no clearly legible cartouche or royal name on the visible portion; the text appears to be ink/pigment inscription rather than Greek/Coptic/Arabic script. The overall condition looks good to fair, with visible pigment wear and fading on the painted areas. No explicit deity figure is directly depicted beyond the human-headed lid, which is consistent with canopic-jug iconography but does not allow identification of a specific deity from the image alone.
funerary
unknown
good
Deities
unknown
Royals
unknown
Materials
ceramicpigment/paint
Signs
unknown individual hieroglyphic signs (multiple vertical columns) ×30
Inscriptions (1)
Inscription #1
English description
Words spoken by Neith: “I place my arms on that which is in me, I protect the Hapi which is in me [of] the Overseer of the Builders of Amun, Amenhotep, revered by Hapi, Amenhotep.”
Cross-references (1)
- ARTIC-id 120264 tier-2
Similar inscriptions · by content embedding
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian).
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.