Anubis Shrine Box | Hand-Gilded in 24k Gold Leaf

Three thousand years ago, a black jackal was set to guard the doorway to a king’s treasure. He never left his post.

Anubis was the Egyptian god of embalming and the guide of souls through the underworld. It was Anubis who stood at the scales when a heart was weighed against the feather of truth, and Anubis who watched over the dead on their journey. When Howard Carter opened the Treasury of Tutankhamun’s tomb, the jackal was still there, recumbent on his gilded sled, facing the burial chamber as though he had been waiting the whole time.

That shrine is catalogued as Carter no. 261 and rests today in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo under inventory number JE 61444. Ours is modeled after it.

The black jackal lies alert, ears raised, a gold collar at his throat. Beneath him is a chest on sled runners, every surface engraved with hieroglyphs and rows of ankh and djed symbols, the signs of life and stability. The piece is cast in stone in Egypt, then finished by hand in our Calgary studio, where we cover every ridge and recess in real 24k gold leaf. Each sheet is thinner than tissue and laid one at a time, so the engraving catches the light the way it was meant to.

The lid lifts away to reveal a hollow chamber. The original shrine was made to guard treasure, and yours can do the same job, whether that’s jewelry, keepsakes, or something you simply want kept safe.

Placed on a shelf, mantel, or desk, it brings real presence to a room.

Details

• Size: 39 × 34 × 21 cm (15.4 × 13.4 × 8.3 in)
• Weight: 33.5 lbs (15.2 kg)
• Stone, finished in real 24k gold leaf
• Removable lid with hollow interior
• Cast in Egypt, hand-gilded in Calgary
• Modeled after Carter no. 261, Egyptian Museum, Cairo (JE 61444)