Model of four nemset-jars on a common pedestal

An object made of light turquoise Egyptian faience typical of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty contains four so-called nemset-jars fixed on a common pedestal. The jars are globular, with high shoulders, narrow mouths, and a rounded rim at the opening of the top. There is also an additional opening on the side of each vessel, which suggests a ritual function of the jars for libation, i.e., water sacrifice. In this case, however, the openings of the pouring face in opposite directions and the common base would also prevent the jars from being actually used, so the object served clearly as a grave good. The object type of the four nemset-jars was found mainly in the elite tombs of Lower Egypt in the Saite, that is Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, in the context of other models of objects associated with the so-called “opening of the mouth ritual”. This was the most common variant of this object group, but there was also an object type containing ten jars.

Tomb builders adapted the ritual objects of the “opening of the mouth ritual” scene seen on the walls of private tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and on later papyri of the Book of the Dead. Reinterpreting their role, scale models were created to support the tomb owner achieve eternal afterlife. Indeed, the repetition of the “opening of the mouth ritual” was crucial in rejuvenation. The object may also have served as a symbolic object at the libation ceremony of the burial, when the “opening of the mouth ritual” was actually carried out on the mummy.