Pendant: Osiris and Isis of Canopus

The meaning of this small pendant is not entirely clear, and even the images are difficult to read because of the size of the object and the crushing of the hollow sheet gold. It seems to show two vessel-like forms with crowned heads, a form that relates to Osiris-Canopus, who was worshipped in the form of a jar with a human head in the coastal city of Canopus. The jar of Osiris-Canopus may signify the abundance brought by Nile water or may have been dervied from a reliquary form. Imagery of the god appears on Alexandrian coins in the 1st century AD and thrived in the 2nd century AD in Egypt and beyond. Indeed the Roman emperor Hadrian had visited and enjoyed Canopus and replicated aspects of the city, including an image of Osiris-Canopis, at his estate Tivoli near Rome.

Representations of two such jars together are known on coins and elsewhere, but there their attributes can be more clearly differentiated than they seem to be or than was possible on this small pendant. Scholars do not agree whether the pairs represent two forms of Osiris Canopus or, rather, Osiris Canopus with an Isis Canopus, but the latter view has been adopted here.