Container for canopic vases

Artefact Details

Gallery number: 9 – Upper Floor

Period: New Kingdom

Dynasty: 18th Dynasty, Reign of Tutankhamun (1327-1318 BC)

Size: Height: 85,5 cm, Lenght: 54 cm, Width: 54 cm

Place of discovery: Valley of the Kings – Thebes

Material: Alabaster, gold leaf

Inside the shrine, wrapped in a linen sheet, was the container for the canopic vases made of Egyptian alabaster (calcite) resting on a gilded wood sled. Its interior was divided into four compartments with lids with the pharaoh’s image in which were four small sarcophagi, miniature reproductions (39 cm tall) of the pharaoh’s intermediate anthropoid coffin that contained the viscera (lungs, stomach, intestine, and liver) extracted from the king’s body. The base of the container is covered with a gold leaf and decorated with djed and tit symbols.