Known to the ancient Egyptians simply as embalming jars, canopic jars held the mummified internal organs of the deceased.  Early Egyptologists labeled them "canopic" jars, mistakenly linking them to a legend from Canopus (in the Nile Delta), where Classical myth maintained the local god was worshiped in the form of a jar with a man's head.

 

Canopic jars were placed inside the tomb of the deceased.  The jars were molded from clay or carved from stone.  Sometimes the lids were made of carved wood.  In the Old Kingdom, the jars had plain lids; beginning in the First Intermediate Period, the lids looked like human heads.  During the New Kingdom, the jar lids took on the likenesses of the four Sons of Horus.

  

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