Deities
Anubis
Egyptian Deities
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Anubis, Egyptian Anpu or Inpu, is the ancient Egyptian jackal-headed god of embalming, mummification and the passage of the dead, guardian of the necropolis and its cemeteries. He was believed to have embalmed the murdered Osiris, becoming the patron of embalmers, whose masked priests worked in his person, and in the Hall of the Two Truths he leads the deceased to the scales and weighs the heart against the feather of Maat. An ancient god, prominent before Osiris rose to pre-eminence, he was called Foremost of the Westerners and Lord of the Sacred Land. His cult centre was Cynopolis, the city of the dog.
Facts
Belief
TheologyPolytheistic: many gods 1 Cult
Principal Cult CentreHardai (Cynopolis) in Middle Egypt 1 Attributes and IconographyA black jackal, or jackal-headed, tending the embalming table. 1 Worship and PracticeAnubis presided over embalming and mummification, and priests performing the ritual are recorded as wearing jackal headed masks to embody him during the ceremony, a practical role that made him one of the most consistently depicted deities in Egyptian funerary art. 3 Life
Associated RelicThe imiut fetish, a headless animal skin bound to a pole and set upright in a pot, appears repeatedly in tomb reliefs and temple scenes as one of the oldest emblems associated with Anubis, predating the god's later jackal headed image in Egyptian funerary art. 1 Function
Domain / Function Domain / Function Domain / Function Domain / FunctionProtection and guardianship 1 Attributions
Mythic AssociationAnubis was believed to have embalmed the murdered Osiris, becoming the patron of embalmers, and in the Hall of the Two Truths he leads the deceased to the scales and weighs the heart against the feather of Maat. 2 Attestation
Era of Attestation Veneration TodayHistorically attested; no continuous cult 1 HistoricityNot a historical person: a divine or other-than-human being 3 Origins
Origin of the NameThe Greek name Anubis renders the Egyptian Anpu or Inpu, and the god was closely associated with embalming and the protection of the dead well before Osiris rose to prominence in that role. 3 Position Profile
Key TextSpell 125 of the Book of the Dead depicts Anubis personally overseeing the weighing of the heart, in which the deceased's heart is balanced on a scale against the feather of Ma'at, and it is Anubis whom later vignettes most often show adjusting the scale itself and announcing the result to the assembled tribunal of gods. 2 Practice
LineageLater Egyptian myth, attested from the New Kingdom onward, names Anubis as the illegitimate son of Osiris and Nephthys, a union that provoked Set's jealousy and helped set the Osiris murder in motion, while older tradition instead named him a son of Ra or of Set himself. 1 Learn More
The Jackal at the Edge of the Desert
Anubis (Egyptian Inpu) is the black canine god who presides over death, embalming and the cemetery. His animal is usually identified as a jackal or a jackal-like desert dog, and the choice of animal is telling: such animals scavenged at the desert margins where Egyptians buried their dead, so the god who protected the corpse wears the shape of the very creature a family most feared would disturb it. His colour, black, is not the black of decay but of the fertile Nile silt and of resurrection, the colour of Osiris restored.
Anubis is the patron of mummification. Myth makes him the one who first embalmed Osiris, and so the inventor of the process that preserves the body for the afterlife. In the embalming workshop the presiding priest wore an Anubis mask, standing in for the god as he performed the rites over the dead; surviving masks and countless tomb images show the jackal-headed figure bending over the mummy on its lion-shaped bier.
He is also Khenty-seh-netjer, foremost of the divine booth, and guardian of the necropolis, the god invoked to keep tombs and their occupants safe.
Guide of the Dead, and Keeper of the Scales
Anubis's second great role is to conduct the dead through the dangers of the afterlife and to oversee their judgement. In the Book of the Dead it is Anubis who leads the deceased into the hall of judgement and who adjusts the balance on which the heart is weighed against the feather of Maat, checking the scales so that the verdict is true. He does not pass the sentence, that is Osiris's role, with Thoth recording, but he guarantees that the weighing itself is honest.
Egyptian religion changed over time, and Anubis's standing changed with it. In the earliest funerary texts, before Osiris rose to dominate the afterlife, Anubis was the pre-eminent god of the dead in his own right; as the Osiris religion spread, Anubis was folded into it as Osiris's loyal assistant and embalmer. This is a clear case of one god's myth being reorganised around another's, visible in the record rather than smoothed over.
In the Greco-Roman period he took on a further, hybrid life as Hermanubis, merged with the Greek Hermes as a guide of souls, a syncretism that carried the jackal-god into the wider Mediterranean.
Correspondences & Relations
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Duat, Realms He attends the embalming and leads the dead through the Duat.
Among the embalmer priests who performed Mummification, one wore the jackal mask of Anubis.
This source names Anubis directly: "A limestone statue of Anubis as a recumbent canid, originally painted black, Egyptian, end of Late Period to Ptolemaic Period, 343 to 30 BCE."
This source names Anubis directly: "API record for a limestone statue of Anubis as a recumbent canid, originally painted black, Egyptian, end of Late Period to Ptolemaic Period, 343 to 30 BCE."
He brings the dead to the balance and steadies it.
Child Of
Nephthys's own description: "one tradition makes her the mother of Anubis."
Depicted In
Confirmed card in the deck's corrected multi-pantheon scope (Egyptian); jrriveracorner.wordpress.com full card list, corroborated independently for this figure.
Anubis conducts the weighing of the heart itself, the papyrus's central scene, setting the scale in motion rather than appearing incidentally.
Related To
Anubis leads the dead through the Duat to the balance.
Same Figure, Narrative Entry
Worshipped In
Anubis, the jackal, presides over embalming and guides the dead to judgment.
Sources
1. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt
Donald B. Redford (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2001s.v. AnubisView the Source 2. The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead
Raymond O. Faulkner (translator); Carol Andrews (editor), British Museum Press, 1985Anubis leading the dead and adjusting the balance at the judgementView the Source 3. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt
3. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt
Richard H. Wilkinson, Thames & Hudson, 2003Anubis as embalmer and necropolis-guardian; his eclipse by OsirisView the Source The Egyptian Book of the Dead
E.A. Wallis Budge (trans.), Sold at the British Museum, and by Longmans and Co., B. Quaritch, Asher and Co., Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., and Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press, per the book's own 1895 title page, whi, 1895Spell 125, the weighing of the heartView the Source Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source Essays About This Entity (1 essay)
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