Walters Art Museum (Egyptian) · vessel

Canopic Jar with Jackal Head

Source of record: Walters Art Museum (Egyptian) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

<p>During mummification, the internal organs of the deceased were removed from the body and placed in a set of four special containers, the so-called canopic jars. The lids of the jars depicted the heads of a hawk, a human, a jackal, and a baboon, each associated with one of the four "Sons of Horus," the deities responsible for protecting the organs. Jackal-headed Duamutef was responsible for the stomach.</p><p>For the latest information about this object, <cite><a href='https://purl.thewalters.org/art/41.91' rel='external'>Canopic Jar with Jackal Head</a></cite>, visit the Online Collection of the Walters Art Museum.</p>

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 limestone canopic jar with a jackal (dog-like) head-shaped lid; the face is rendered in dark pigment and the jar body bears horizontal bands of hieroglyphic text.

The image shows an upright canopic jar made of light-colored stone with a separately formed lid/head. The lid is carved in the shape of a jackal (animal) with pointed ears and a frontal, stylized face. Eyes and facial markings are highlighted in dark paint, and the snout/muzzle is indicated with shading. The jar body is painted overall and decorated with a horizontal register near the upper portion that contains multiple boxed hieroglyphs. Additional painted lines and bands run around the vessel; a vertical panel-like area is visible on the lower body. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic script is visible. The hieroglyphic characters are present but too unclear to reliably transcribe or assign specific signs beyond indicating that a substantial inscription band exists. No royal cartouche is clearly legible.

funerary Ancient Egyptian, likely Late Period to Ptolemaic (exact date unclear from image alone). good
Deities Anubis (jackal-headed deity) — inferred from jackal iconography, not directly readable from the inscription in this image
Materials limestonepaint
Signs boxed hieroglyphs in a horizontal band (unreadable) ×30

Connections

Deities HorusDuamutef

Cross-references (2)

  • Walters-AccNum 41.91 tier-2
  • Walters-id 39958 tier-2
About this record's data
  • From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Walters Art Museum (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.