Canopic Jars from Oedipus Aegyptiacus

This black-and-white print features two ceramic vessels set on pedestals, rendered in a clean, schematic ink-line style. The left jar bears a stylized engraving of a mummiform entity with a nemes headdress, flanked by two small arrow-like symbols. The right jar displays a rectangular inset panel filled with non-standard, linear signs that mimic the appearance of Egyptian hieroglyphs, including a bird-like glyph at the base. The background is plain, emphasizing the contour and ornamentation of the two objects.

These illustrations originate from Athanasius Kircher's 'Oedipus Aegyptiacus', a foundational 17th-century work that attempted to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs as a repository of primordial Hermetic wisdom. The pseudo-hieroglyphs reflect the contemporary European fascination with, and fundamental misunderstanding of, ancient Egyptian semiotics prior to the Rosetta Stone discovery.