Topic Page: Anubis (Egyptian deity)

Definition: Anubis from The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
In Egyptian mythology, the jackal-headed god of the dead, son of Osiris. Anubis presided over the funeral
cult, including the weighing of the heart and embalming, and led the dead to judgement.

Summary Article: ANUBIS

From Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology

In ancient Egypt the jackal-headed god Anubis was originally the most
important deity linked to funerals and death. Over time, however, this
Image from: The role was taken over by the god Osiris, and Anubis became associated
Egyptian god with preserving dead bodies and guiding the dead in the underworld.
Anubis stemmed In the sacred texts of the ancient Egyptians, both the cow goddess Hesat,
from the local... in who was the deity of childbirth, and the cat goddess Bastet, goddess of
The Werewolf Book: music, were named as the mother of Anubis. Later it was said that Anubis was
The Encyclopedia of the son of Nepthys, the wife of Seth, the evil god of storms and chaos. In this
Shape-Shifting Beings account of the god's origins, Anubis's father was either the sun god Re or the
vegetation god Osiris, although Seth was also suggested as a possible father.
When Anubis was born, Nepthys hid him in marshes on the banks of the Nile River to save the infant
from Seth. Isis, the mother goddess and sister of Nepthys, discovered Anubis and, in this version of
events, raised him.

However, records from the first millennium BCE refer to Anubis as the son of Sekhmet and Osiris.
Sekhmet was a lion goddess who, according to one myth, was sent by the supreme god to destroy all
life on earth. She was mostly a destructive deity who could bring plague and violence, but she could also
be persuaded to cure sickness. Usually Sekhmet was identified as the alter ego of either Hathor,
goddess of love, or Bastet. Yet whatever his origins, Anubis belonged to the second generation of
gods who came after the creator and the four primeval deities: Tefnut, goddess of moisture; Shu, god
of air; and their children—Geb, the earth god, and Nut, the sky goddess.

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 A statue of Anubis, created around 1340 BCE. Anubis is one of the most familiar of all ancient Egyptian deities.

Anubis's changing role

Some scholars believe that Anubis was originally Egypt's most important deity associated with burials,
because of prayers addressed to him in the Old Kingdom (c. 2575–c. 2130 BCE). The Pyramid Texts,
the oldest surviving body of Egyptian religious and funerary writings, which date back to the Old
Kingdom, describe Anubis as the judge of the dead. However, by the end of the Middle Kingdom (c.
1938–c. 1630 BCE), Osiris had replaced Anubis as chief god of the cult of the dead. From then on,
Anubis's main role was to assist in the preservation of the body. According to the myth of the
resurrection of Osiris, after the god's death and dismemberment at the hands of Seth, the goddess
Isis, who was Osiris's wife and sister, set out to restore his body. Anubis aided Isis in her task, and he
embalmed Osiris's body when it was reassembled. By the time of the New Kingdom (c. 1540-c. 1075
BCE), Anubis had become a familiar figure in coffin paintings, where he was shown bending over the
bodies of the dead. In addition to his role in preserving the dead, Anubis helped judge the dead, and he
led honest souls to Osiris's throne.

Representations of Anubis
Anubis is usually depicted with the body of a man and the head of a jackal. Sometimes he is portrayed
entirely as a jackal wearing a band of cloth around his neck and sometimes holding a royal scepter.
Although the oldest mentions of Anubis call him a jackal, some scholars think that the original animal
might have been a wild dog. Many centuries later the Romans thought he was a dog and referred to

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 "barking Anubis." However, neither jackals nor Egyptian wild dogs are black, which is the color of the
jackal parts of Anubis in all representations.

During the second and first millennia BCE, jackals and wild dogs would have been a common sight in
Egypt, scavenging around the edges of settlements and disturbing burials and even dismembered
corpses—especially in the days before mummification. Egyptologists are unclear as to exactly why the
scavenger animals were used to represent the god of mummification and the guardian of the
necropolis (large, sacred burial grounds).

Mummification
The preservation of the body was extremely important in ancient Egyptian religion. Although it was
believed that a human being had more than one soul—some of the ancient Egyptian texts list up to five
souls—their survival in the afterlife was linked to two factors: the continued existence of the body and
the remembrance of the name. The body was the primary vessel that contained the soul, although a
statue or other image could be used as a substitute. Moreover, Egyptians believed that the body must
continue to exist with all its important parts intact or it would not function. Scholars think that this belief
led to the development of a process of mummification in which organs that were believed to be vital
were removed from the body, dried, and then put back into the corpse. For the ancient Egyptians the
most important organs were the heart, which they believed controlled emotion, memory, and thought;
and the lungs, liver, intestines, and stomach. Organs that the modern world recognizes as vital, such as
the spleen, kidneys, pancreas, and brain, were not recognized by the Egyptian priests as essential to
the deceased in the afterlife.

Egyptian Coffins

The earliest coffins found in ancient Egyptian sites were square, and the unmummified body was
placed inside in a curled-up position. Later coffins were rectangular and the body was wrapped in
linen. The expensive ones were decorated with texts of magical spells and occasionally with
paintings, usually showing the tomb owner receiving offerings. Only a few mummies and coffins from
early ancient Egypt have survived. There is, however, a mummy of a woman whose fingers and toes
were wrapped individually, and pieces of fabric were sewn to the front of the mummy to make it
look as if she were wearing a sleeveless gown.

By the 17th century BCE, coffins were shaped roughly like a wrapped body, with a face painted on
the head end of the coffin. They were lavishly decorated with scenes of gods as well as magical
spells. Anubis appears often in these paintings, either in scenes of the weighing of the heart or in
paintings that depict the body being mummified. The only pictures that exist of the mummification
process come from coffins. From these, it is known that a priest wearing an Anubis mask performed
certain rituals in the mummification process and burial. In one painting, priests in ordinary clothing are
guiding another priest who wears an Anubis mask. The jackal-head mask housed today in the
Museum of Hildesheim, Germany, suggests why this guidance was necessary. The mask, which is
made of wood, goes completely over the wearer's head, and the face of the jackal is above the
head of the person wearing it. The eyeholes, instead of being at the eyes, are in the neck of the
mask, where they would be hidden by the shadow of the muzzle.

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 Over the centuries refinements improved the mummification process. For example, from about the
18th century BCE onward, special jars, called canopic jars, were made to hold the preserved lungs, liver,
intestines, and stomach of the deceased. The lids of the jars were occasionally made to resemble the
dead person whose organs were to be put inside, as in the case of canopic jars from the tomb of the
Egyptian king Tutankhamen (c. 1370-1352 BCE). However, it was more common to make the lids in the
likenesses of the four sons of Horus, the falcon-headed sky god. They were Hapi, Imsety,
Qebehsenef, and Duamutef. Hapi, not to be confused with the Nile god of the same name, is depicted
as a baboon-headed deity who was in charge of the lungs. Imsety is represented as having a human
face and was protector of the liver. Qebehsenef, shown with the head of a falcon or hawk, guarded the
intestines. The fourth son, Duamutef, was god of the stomach and, like Anubis, was jackal-headed.

Another Anubis-like deity

Anubis was often confused with other canine or jackal-headed gods and divinities. For example, the god
Wepwawet, whose name means "Opener of the Ways," is depicted almost identically to the jackal-
headed Anubis. The only difference is that Wepwawet is shown with a gray or white head, a feature
that led some people to describe Wepwawet, incorrectly, as a wolf. This misidentification began with
the Romans, who called the city in which Wepwawet's cult center was based Lycopolis, or "City of the
Wolf."

The Egyptian Book of the Dead (c. 16th century BCE)—a collection of spells and prayers used by
ancient Egyptians as a guidebook for the souls of the dead on their travels through the underworld—
describes Wepwawet as a protective deity who led the souls of the deceased to the underworld. The
close resemblance between the two gods led over time to the personalities merging, and their many
titles may have been interchangeable. These included "First among the Westerners" (westerners was
another term for the dead), "Lord of the Necropolis," and "Lord of Abydos." Abydos was one of the
most ancient settlements in the Nile Valley.

See also: ANIMAL-HEADED FIGURES; BOOK OF THE DEAD; DEATH AND THE AFTERLIFE; EGYPT;
GEB; HORUS; ISIS; NUT; OSIRIS; RE; SETH.

Further reading
Chamberlain, Andrew T., and Michael Parker Pearson. Earthly Remains: The History and Science
of Preserved Human Bodies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Faulkner, Raymond, trans. The Egyptian Book of the Dead. San Francisco: Chronicle Books,
2000.
Spence, Lewis. Ancient Egyptian Myths and Legends. New York: Dover Publications, 1991.

LYN GREEN

APA

Chicago

Harvard

MLA

Green, L., & GREEN, L. (2012). Anubis. In Gods, goddesses, and mythology. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall

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 Cavendish Reference. Retrieved from
https://search.credoreference.com/content/topic/anubis_egyptian_deity

Copyright © 2012 Marshall Cavendish Corporation

Copyright © 2012 Marshall Cavendish Corporation

https://search.credoreference.com/content/topic/anubis_egyptian_deity
APA
Green, L., & GREEN, L. (2012). Anubis. In Gods, goddesses, and mythology. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall
Cavendish Reference. Retrieved from
https://search.credoreference.com/content/topic/anubis_egyptian_deity

Chicago
Green, Lyn, and LYN GREEN. "Anubis." In Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology. Marshall Cavendish
Reference, 2012. https://search.credoreference.com/content/topic/anubis_egyptian_deity

Harvard
Green, L. and GREEN, L. (2012). Anubis. In Gods, goddesses, and mythology. [Online]. Tarrytown: Marshall
Cavendish Reference. Available from:
https://search.credoreference.com/content/topic/anubis_egyptian_deity [Accessed 30 July 2019].

MLA
Green, Lyn, and LYN GREEN. "Anubis." Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology, Marshall Cavendish Reference,
1st edition, 2012. Credo Reference,
https://search.credoreference.com/content/topic/anubis_egyptian_deity. Accessed 30 Jul. 2019.

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