Secrist 1
Chauncey Secrist
Professor Martha Baumgarten
ARTH 2710
8 March 2015
Funerary objects of the ancient Egyptians and the Maya
Death is perhaps the only universal human characteristic, and celebrations and rituals
surrounding death are deeply ingrained in culture. Funerary rituals and objects are often closely
tied to religion and beliefs about an afterlife, and these practices are as diverse as the cultures
and religions from which they come. A comparison of ritual funerary objects from unrelated
cultures, in this case a pair of identical urns from the Classic to Late Classic Period Maya in
Guatemala and a set of canopic jars from the New Kingdom period of ancient Egypt, will
provide evidence of the universality of death rituals, the importance of religion in the creation
and use of these objects, and will demonstrate stylistic similarities and disparities between
these objects.
Mayan funerary urns and Egyptian canopic jars frequently depict images of gods. In the
Mayan urn shown in fig. 1, the carved face has been identified as the god "G-I" of the Palenque
Triad. Mayan gods are often referred to by a Roman numeral or letter designation. In this case,
"G-I" means "God One." The Palenque Triad consists of G-I, G-II, and G-III. G-I is sometimes
thought to be one of many manifestations of Chaahk, the god of rain & lightning, who is also
associated with war and human sacrifice (www.learningobjects.com/wesleyan.edu). Other
sources indicate G-I as a manifestation of Hunaphpu of the "Hero Twins " (Parmington). The
Hero Twins are central figures in the Popol Vuh, the mytho-historical narrative of three
Secrist 2
generations of deities that is the basis for Maya religious beliefs. G-I is indentified by his
pendulous nose and spondylus shell earflare. He also typically wields hafted tone axes or
serpents, which are symbols of lightning, and he often has a serpent in his mouth (Ishihara).
fig. 1
Like the Mayan urns, the Egyptian canopic jars shown in fig. 2-5 also depict important
deities. They have lids carved with four gods responsible for looking after four of the deceased's
internal organs. Qebhbsenuef (fig. 2), the falcon-headed god, looked after the intestines;
Duamutef (fig. 3), the jackyl-headed god, looked after the stomach; Hapy (fig. 4), the baboonheaded god, looked after the lungs; and Imsety (fig. 5), the
human-headed god, looked after the liver (Dunand).
Both the Mayan urn and the Egyptian jars were
important tools in funerary practices. These Mayan urns are
believed to have contained the severed heads of important
persons. Early tombs at Tikal contained the skeletal remains of
fig. 2
Secrist 3
important persons, but without their skulls. In Mayan culture the brain was considered the
most important organ, which housed the "ch'ul," or one of the two souls (Brown). The Maya
believed in a two-part soul. The ch'ul was invincible, indestructible, and eternal. The second
soul was called the "Way" and was defined as a "supernatural guardian" or "protector." It
existed outside of the person, often taking the guise of a wild animal and shared the ch'ul with
the person from birth. In the Popo Vuh, the gods created the "first beings" out of mud, but they
were destroyed because they did not have brains, and thus had no souls and could not live.
According to historian Bernadette Brown, the importance of the severed heads once contained
within these urns was related to the soul, and was possibly part of an important sacrificial act of
beheading, an act which was common to the Maya. The dead would then have maize and a
piece of jade or stone placed in their mouth. The maize was to provide food for the journey to
the otherworld, and the jade was to be used as currency on the journey (Bunson).
In contrast, the Egyptians thought the brain superfluous and often discarded it during
the mummification process (Dunand). The organs they believed were important were the
intestines, the liver, the lungs, and the stomach. After
death, these organs were typically removed from the body
and placed in canopic jars to preserve them for the afterlife.
It was believed that these four organs were required to be
reborn into the afterlife. The heart, believed to be the seat
of the soul, was left inside the body, to be removed in the
afterlife and weighed against an ostrich feather, the symbol
of Ma'at, the goddess of truth, order, and justice, to
fig. 3
Secrist 4
determine if the deceased was worthy of gaining entrance to the underworld (Stokstad) The
brain, thought to be nothing more than the producer of mucus, was often removed and
discarded (Germer).
The canopic jars in fig. 2-5 are made of carved limestone,
using a reductive process of chiseling stone away to reveal the
form. Sometimes they were made of clay. The lids are carved with
the heads of the "Four Sons of Horus" and the body of the vessels
are smooth and without carved ornamentation. By the New
fig. 4
Kingdom period, it was common for canopic vessels to be painted
with an inscription bearing the name and title of the deceased (Dunn). Conversely, the Mayan
urns are made of clay, using an additive process of building up a form by adding clay and then
firing in a kiln to harden the clay. They are covered in ornamentation on every portion that
would have been visible in their original context, likely being placed in a niche inside of a tomb,
exposing only the front portion. The canopic jars are slightly
smaller than the Mayan urns. In each case the size of the vessel
is relative to its function of housing specific body parts to be
interred with the deceased person.
The Maya and the Egyptians were both concerned with
the afterlife and both cultures created art objects specifically
linked to death rituals. Even the functions of these objects were
similar, housing parts of the body considered most important to
fig. 5
Secrist 5
their respective cultures, to be placed in tombs with the deceased person. They each contained
objects they considered necessary to survival in the afterlife. Stylistically, they both use animal
symbols and highly stylized forms. The Maya tend to decorate the entire visible surface, while
the Egyptians leave some space untouched. And in both cases, the art was created to perform a
function, rather than to be viewed by the public, indicating the importance of these rituals. In
all, there are a variety of similarities between these two unrelated cultures and their ritual
funerary objects.
Secrist 6
Works Cited
www.learningobjects.com/wesleyan.edu/palenque/glyphs/temple_foliated_cross/
Parmington, Alexander, Space and Sculpture in the Classic Maya City, Cambridge University
Press, 2011
Ishihara, Reiko, Deities of the Ancient Maya, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection,
Washington D.C., 2009
Brown, Bernadette, Personal Interview, 20 February 2015
Bunson, Margaret R., and Stephen M. Bunson, "Death Rituals, Maya." Encyclopedia of Ancient
Mesoamerica, New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1996
Taube, Karl, An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya
Francoise Dunand and Roger Lichtenberg, Mummies and Death in Egypt, Cornell University
Press, Ithaca and London, 2006
Stokstad, Marilyn and Cothren, Michael W., Art History vol. 1, 4th edition, 2011
Germer, Renate, Mummification, in Regine Schulz and Matthias Seidel (eds)., Egypt - The World
of the Pharaohs, Cologne: Könemann
Dunn, Jimmy (writing as Taylor Ray Ellison), Canopic Chests and Jars,
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/canopic.htm
Secrist 7
Fig. 1. "Urn." Guatemala, Central Petѐn region, Tikal or Uaxactun, Maya Culture, Classic to Late
Classic Period (100 BCE-900 CE). Earthenware and pigment. Collection of Utah Museum
of Fine Art.
Fig. 2. "Canopic Vessel, Qebhbsenuef." New Kingdom Period, Egypt. Collection of Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
Fig. 3. "Canopic Vessel, Duamutef." New Kingdom Period, Egypt. Collection of Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
Fig. 4. "Canopic Vessel, Hapy." New Kingdom Period, Egypt. Collection of Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
Fig. 5. "Canopic Vessel, Imsety." New Kingdom Period, Egypt. Collection of Metropolitan
Museum of Art.