Provenance:
Private Collection, New York, acquired in the 1960s; thence by descent to the current owner.

This potsherd is inscribed in ink with two columns of hieroglyphs, reading right to left. The right-hand column is the latter part of a male personal name, with the epithet applied to a blessed deceased person. The preserved part of the left-hand column reads “mut-ef,” It is suggested that the column could be restored as “[Ka ?]-mutef,” literally “Bull of His Mother,” which is an epithet of Min and Amun, or possibly “[Dua ?]-mutef,” yielding “Duamutef,” one of the Four Sons of Horus who guard the internal organs of the mummy in the canopic jars. A complete translation available upon request. 

For an example of a complete canopic jar made from burnished red pottery and black ink, see a the National Museum of Scotland (Inv. no. A.1921.1494).