The Canopic Chest of King Tut was recently featured in a video with Dr Janice Kamrin, as she walks around the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and explains what this beautiful artefact would have been used for (Skip to the video by clicking here). As one of the treasures of the Cairo Museum, it was photographed in stunning detail by the established Egyptology photographer Sandro Vannini, and the images are bought to the Internet by Heritage Key.
As we described in our recent handy guide to how to make a mummy, the ancient Egyptians went to great and grizzly lengths to ensure that every last bit of a body was efficiently preserved. The internal organs had to be removed in order to effectively dry out a corpse. They would then be individually wrapped and preserved separately in canopic vessels.
Dr Janice Kamrin takes us on a trip through the Egyptian Museum, Cairo and shows the spectacular Canopic Shrine - a golden and intricately decorated container flanked by four figures of gods. Inside this stunning shrine was the Canopic containers, which held the vital organs of the mummified body. Made from solid blocks of alabaster, the individual viscera containers were themselves protected inside gold coffinettes.
The canopic shrine of King Tut is a beautiful gold container, which was discovered in KV62 – the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun – by Howard Carter in 1922. It was used to house the canopic chest, which itself contained four vessels bearing the viscera of King Tut – his lungs, liver, stomach and intestines, which were removed for practical purposes during the mummification process.
As tall as a man and made from solid gold, it's one of the most beautiful examples of the many "wonderous things" found by Carter within KV62. On the sides of the shrine are statues of various gods and godesses, including the four sons of Horus – Imsety, Duamutef, Hapi, Qebehsenuef, who were essentially the canopic jars personified. It also bears images of Isis – matriarchal patron of nature and magic – and Serqet, the scorpion goddess. Among the many inscriptions on the side of the shrine are instructions on how to dismantle and put the artefact together.
The shrine currently resides at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, in a display case adjacent to that of the canopic chest.
This canopic chest is an elaborate container which was discovered in KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun, by Howard Carter in 1922. It is divided into four compartments, each of which was used to individually house one of the internal organs of King Tut - his lungs, liver, stomach and intestine - which were removed during the mummification process.
The chest and accompanying lid were carved from single pieces of Egyptian alabaster. They are decorated with gods and godesses, and engraved with special ancient Egyptian spells. The spells would be spoken by the goddess to state that they are protecting the gods who are themselves in turn protecting the viscera of Tutankhamun. The chest was found placed inside the beautiful gold canopic shrine of King Tut, which is displayed adjacently at the chest's current location - the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt.
