NEW KINGDOM, CIRCA 1550-1069 B.C.

Details

AN EGYPTIAN LIMESTONE CANOPIC JAR FRAGMENT
NEW KINGDOM, CIRCA 1550-1069 B.C.
With round shoulders and tapering body, with five columns of hieroglyphs, reading, 'Words to be spoken by Nephthys, you have shrouded your two arms upon she who is in you, that you might make protection over Hapy, who is in you. The revered one before Hapy, the Osiris, King's Ornament, Kafy'
7 5/8 in. (19.5 cm.) high

Provenance

Private collection, Calgary, Canada; acquired 1982 in England.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

The hieroglyphic inscription mentioning the god Hapy, the protector of the lungs, is in 'retrograde' orientation. The text is to be read in the same direction in which the signs face, contrary to normal practice. The origin of retrograde writing comes from primordial times as the Egyptians believed that anything magical and secret associated with funerary rituals should be be the privilege of only the few. Another Canopic jar of Kafy is mentionned in G. Legrain, Annales du Service des Antiquités de l'Égypte, vol. 5, 1904, p. 141.

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