Hapy (Son of Horus)

The four sons of Horus, including Hapy, began to appear as a grouped set in Egyptian sources from the First Intermediate Period and thereafter were integrated into mortuary practice and iconography. The supplied sources do not record a separate narrative origin myth for Hapy himself; rather he is attested as a member of the quartet invoked to protect the deceased and their viscera during burial and in the afterlife.

In earlier phases the sons of Horus could be portrayed anthropomorphically, but from the latter part of the New Kingdom onward Hapy is conventionally represented with a baboon head. He appears as canopic-jar lids, amuletic figures and small statuettes made of materials such as faience, wax, and glazed ceramics; museum examples dated to the Third Intermediate and Late Periods illustrate these forms.

Hapy's recorded function is protective: as one of the four funerary guardians he is associated with the custody of an internal organ removed during mummification (most commonly the lungs, though assignments could vary). His presence is invoked through object-types—canopic lids, amulets, and figurines—that served to secure the corpse and its integrity for the afterlife rather than through attested intervention narratives or exorcistic rites in the supplied sources.