Qebehsenuef

Qebehsenuef is historically attested as one member of a closely linked quartet of funerary deities collectively called the Four Sons of Horus. Within Egyptian mortuary practice these figures emerged as protective attendants whose roles were integrated into the practical technology of burial: each son became identified with a particular internal organ removed during mummification and with a corresponding canopic jar and lid. Over time the four sons were embedded in funerary texts, tomb equipment, and amuletic practice so that the gods were invoked materially — on jars, amulets, and in burial assemblages — to secure the deceased's bodily wholeness in the afterlife. Museum catalogues and summary references tie Qebehsenuef to this institutionalized role rather than to a standalone mythic narrative preserved in the cited sources.

In the material record Qebehsenuef is commonly depicted in later iconography (late New Kingdom and especially Late Period examples) as a mummified figure with the head of a falcon or as a mummified falcon. Canopic jar lids representing Qebehsenuef typically bear a falcon's head; surviving amulets and small figures follow the hawk/falcon representation and were often wrapped with the mummy. The sources note that earlier portrayals of the Sons of Horus as a group show variation in head-types across the quartet, and the falcon-headed form is the canonical late-period representation for Qebehsenuef in museum holdings.

The documented "ability" of Qebehsenuef is protective and custodial: he is entrusted with safeguarding the intestines of the deceased, ensuring their preservation and their restoration to the body in the afterlife. This role is enacted materially by placing canopic jars with falcon-headed lids and amulets bearing his image in the burial assemblage; museum descriptions summarize the duty of the Sons of Horus as protecting and restoring body parts in the hereafter. The cited sources do not record independent active myths, autonomous actions outside funerary contexts, or moral-agency behaviors for Qebehsenuef; any overlapping attributions (for example, occasional mention of the goddess Serket in association with intestines in a single object caption) are noted in the sources but are not broadly corroborated in the provided material.