More on Canopic Jars…
In her 1979 catalogue, Margaret Root comments, "Either they [the inscriptions] were added by a dealer in order to increase the market value of an uninscribed set of authentic jars, or else the jars as well as their inscriptions are modern work."
[Root, Margaret Cool. 1979. Faces of Immortality: Egyptian Mummy Masks, Painted Portraits, and Canopic Jars in the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. Ann Arbor: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan.]
Subsequent research proved that they were indeed modern, probably originating in the alabaster workshops of Qurna, Egypt, where such forgery activity is known to have taken place.
The Art of the Fake: Egyptian Forgeries from the Kelsey Museum of Archeology
Exhibit Curators: Robin Meador-Woodruff, Terry Wilfong and Janet Richards
Exhibit Designer: Anne Noakes