Franchel Patton Jr.   the Ankh Astrologer

 

"Anubis" is a Greek rendering of this god's Egyptian name.  In the Old Kingdom (c. 2686 BC – c. 2181 BC), the standard way of writing his name in hieroglyphs was composed of the sound a jackal over a  sign

 

A new form with the jackal on a tall stand appeared in the late Old Kingdom and became common thereafter:[8]

 

According to the Akkadian transcription in the Amarna letters, Anubis' name was vocalized in Egyptian as Anap

you.

Protector of tombs[edit]

In contrast to real jackals, Anubis was a protector of graves and cemeteries. Several epithets attached to his name inEgyptian texts and inscriptions referred to that role. Khenty-imentiu, which means "foremost of the westerners" and later became the name of a different jackal god, alluded to his protecting function because the dead were usually buried on the west bank of the Nile.[25] He took other names in connection with his funerary role, such as "He who is upon his mountain" (tepy-dju-ef) – keeping guard over tombs from above – and "Lord of the sacred land" (neb-ta-djeser), which designates him as a god of the desert necropolis.[26]

Most ancient tombs had prayers to Anubis carved on them.[27]

Embalmer[edit]

As "He who is in the place of embalming" (imy-ut), Anubis was associated with mummification. He was also called "He who presides over the god's pavilion" (khanty-she-netjer), in which "pavilion" could be refer either to the place where embalming was carried out, or the pharaoh's burial chamber.[26]

In the Osiris myth, Anubis helped Isis to embalm Osiris.[15] Indeed, when the Osiris myth emerged, it was said that after Osiris had been killed by Set, Osiris's organs were given to Anubis as a gift. With this connection, Anubis became the patron god of embalmers; during the rites of mummification, illustrations from the Book of the Dead often show a jackal-mask-wearing priest supporting the upright mummy.

Weighing of the heart[edit]

 

 

 

 

The "weighing of the heart," from the book of the dead of Hunefer. Anubis is portrayed as both guiding the deceased forward and manipulating the scales, under the scrutiny of the ibis-headed Thoth.

One of the roles of Anubis was as the "Guardian of the Scales."[28] The critical scene depicting the weighing of the heart, in the Book of the Dead, shows Anubis performing a measurement that determined whether the person was worthy of entering the realm of the dead (the underworld, known as Duat). By weighing the heart of a deceased person against Ma'at (or "truth"), who was often represented as an ostrich feather, Anubis dictated the fate of souls. Souls heavier than a feather would be devoured by Ammit, but souls lighter than a feather would ascend to a heavenly existence.[29][30]

Guide of souls[edit]

By the late pharaonic era (664–332 BC), Anubis was often depicted as guiding individuals across the threshold from the world of the living to the afterlife.[31]Though a similar role was sometimes performed by the cow-headed Hathor, Anubis was more commonly chosen to fulfill that function.[32] Greek writers from the Roman period of Egyptian history designated that role as that of "psychopomp", a Greek term meaning "guide of souls" that they used to refer to their own god Hermes, who also played that role in Greek religion.[22] Funerary art from that period represents Anubis guiding either men or women dressed in Greek clothes into the presence of Osiris, who by then had long replaced Anubis as ruler of the underworld.[33]

Portrayal in art[edit]

 

 

 

 

A crouching or "recumbent" statue of Anubis as a black-coated jackal (from the Tomb of Tutankhamun)

Anubis was one of the most frequently represented gods in ancient Egyptian art.[4]In the early dynastic period, he was depicted in animal form, as a black jackal.[34]Recent genetic studies show that the Egyptian jackal is actually a subspecies of the grey wolf, and it has thus been renamed the "Egyptian wolf".[35] Anubis' distinctive black color did not represent the coat of real jackals or wolves, but it had several symbolic meanings.[36] First it represented "the discolouration of the corpse after its treatment with natron and the smearing of the wrappings with a resinous substance during mummification".[36] Being the color of the fertile silt of the River Nile, to Egyptians black also symbolized fertility and the possibility of rebirth in the afterlife.[37]

Later[when?] Anubis was often portrayed as a jackal-headed human.[38] An extremely rare depiction of him in fully human form was found in the tomb of Ramesses II inAbydos.[36][7]

Anubis is often depicted wearing a ribbon and holding a nekhakha "flail" in the crook of his arm.[38] Another of Anubis's attributes was the Imiut fetish.[39]

In funerary contexts, Anubis is shown either attending to a deceased person's mummy or sitting atop a tomb protecting it.New Kingdom tomb-seals also depict Anubis sitting atop the nine bows that symbolize his domination over the enemies of Egypt.[14]