Canopo Vases

Common amongst the Etruscans and before them, amongst the Egyptians, Canopo vases were crafted in terracotta to host the ashes of the dead and then laid in the burial chamber together with the belongings of the dead person. The vase is made out of two pieces, the actual vase to host the ashes and the lid in the shape of a human face, the features of which used to be quite generic. Men and women canopo vases could be told apart because the female version had their ear lobes pierced. The word ‘canopo’ comes from the Greek mythology, it referred to the town of Canopo in Ancient Egypt, a place that was named after the burial site of a young man who died there, according to ‘the Iliad’.

The story tells that the Egyptian god of the underworld, Osiris, was worshipped in a very particular shape in Canopo: a vase lidded with a human head. And it is from here on out that canopo vases were crafted to host the remains of the dead.

There is so much history and mystery gathered around these shapes that I thought it would be proper to spend a few paragraph mentioning a glimpse of their origins. Unlike the original pieces, I craft these canopo vases with specific features and people in mind.

It would be my honor to craft one on commission to host the ashes of your loved one. 

I craft them as funerary vases but their use is not exclusive to that. They also can make beautiful decorative pieces that can stand on their own.