... was a handsome young man, who was loved by the Egyptian prophetess Theonoe; but he never reciprocated. According to legend, Canopus died after being bitten by a serpent while visiting the Egyptian coast. Menelaus erected a monument to him at one of the mouths of the River Nile, around which the town of Canopus later developed.
Early Egyptologists mistakenly associated Canopus with the ancient Egyptian custom of storing the viscera (internal organs) of the dead in jars during the mummification process, for use in the afterlife. They are known as canopic jars.
© Haydn Thompson 2017