Homepage Timeline Maps A-Z index Learning

Canopic box

From the Old Kingdom (about 2686-2181 BC) the canopic jars or the organs were placed into a canopic box (oldest secure example: the chest in the tomb of the queen's mother Hetepheres). These boxes are attested till the Ptolemaic Period.

There are no complete canopic chests in the Petrie Museum; some fragments of wooden boxes may be remains of canopic box, but it is often not certain, whether such fragments belong to a canopic or to a shabti box.


(click on the images for a larger picture)
UC 14181, fragment of a canopic chest UC 45834; lid of a canopic chest

Further reading:

  • Aston 2000 (on canopic boxes from the Third Intermediate Period to the Ptolemaic Period)
  • Lüscher 1990 (on canopic boxes of the Old and Middle Kingdom)




 

Copyright © 2002 University College London. All rights reserved.