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Anubis (; Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. Merriam-Webster, 2007. p. 56 ), also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian (), is the god of funerary rites, protector of graves, and guide to the Duat in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depicted as a Canis or a man with a cynocephaly.
Like many ancient Egyptian deities, Anubis assumed different roles in various contexts. Depicted as a protector of graves as early as the First Dynasty (), Anubis was also an Embalming. By the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BC) he was replaced by Osiris in his role as lord of the underworld. One of his prominent roles was as a psychopomp. He attended the weighing scale during the "Weighing of the Heart", in which it was determined whether a soul would be allowed to enter the realm of the dead. Anubis is one of the most frequently depicted and mentioned gods in the Egyptian pantheon; however, few major myths involved him.
Anubis was depicted in black, a color that symbolized regeneration, life, the soil of the Nile, and the discoloration of the corpse after embalming. Anubis is associated with Wepwawet, another Egyptian god portrayed with a dog's head or in canine form, but with grey or white fur. Historians assume that the two figures were eventually combined. Anubis's female counterpart is Anput. His daughter is the serpent goddess Kebechet.
Anubis's name jnpw was possibly pronounced , based on Coptic Anoup and the Akkadian transcription () in the name
In the Old Kingdom, Anubis was the most important god of the dead. He was replaced in that role by Osiris during the Middle Kingdom (2000–1700 BC). In the Roman era, which started in 30 BC, tomb paintings depict him holding the hand of deceased persons to guide them to Osiris.
The parentage of Anubis varied between myths, times and sources. In early mythology, he was portrayed as a son of Ra. In the Coffin Texts, which were written in the First Intermediate Period (c. 2181–2055 BC), Anubis is the son of either the cow goddess Hesat or the cat-headed Bastet. Another tradition depicted him as the son of Ra and Nephthys. More commonly, however, he is recognized as the offspring of Osiris and Isis. In later periods, particularly during the Ptolemaic era, Anubis was sometimes described as the son of Isis and Serapis, a Hellenized form of Osiris designed to appeal to Egypt's growing Greek population.Wilfong,Terry G.(2015), Death Dogs: The Jackal Gods of Ancient Egypt. Kelsey Museum Publication 11. Ann Arbor: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. pp.50-51. The Greek Plutarch (c. 40–120 AD) reported a tradition that Anubis was the illegitimate son of Nephthys and Osiris, but that he was adopted by Osiris's wife Isis:
George Hart sees this story as an "attempt to incorporate the independent deity Anubis into the Osiris myth." An Egyptian papyrus from the Roman period (30–380 AD) simply called Anubis the "son of Isis." In Nubia, Anubis was seen as the husband of his mother Nephthys.
In the Ptolemaic Egypt period (350–30 BC), when Egypt became a Hellenistic kingdom ruled by Greek pharaohs, Anubis was merged with the Greek mythology god Hermes, becoming Hermanubis. The two gods were considered similar because they both psychopomp to the afterlife. The center of this cult was in uten-ha/ Sa-ka/ Cynopolis, a place whose Greek name means "city of dogs." In Book XI of The Golden Ass by Apuleius, there is evidence that the worship of this god was continued in Ancient Rome through at least the 2nd century. Indeed, Hermanubis also appears in the alchemy and Hermeticism literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Although the Greeks and Ancient Romans typically scorned Egyptian animal-headed gods as bizarre and primitive (Anubis was mockingly called "Barker" by the Greeks), Anubis was sometimes associated with Sirius in the heavens and Cerberus and Hades in the underworld. In his dialogues, Plato often has Socrates utter oaths "by the dog" (Greek language: kai me ton kuna), "by the dog of Egypt", and "by the dog, the god of the Egyptians", both for emphasis and to appeal to Anubis as an arbiter of truth in the underworld.E.g., Gorgias, 482b (), or The Republic, 399e, 567e, 592a ().
In the Osiris myth, Anubis helped Isis to embalm Osiris. 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 wolf-mask-wearing priest supporting the upright mummy.
The Jumilhac papyrus recounts another tale where Anubis protected the body of Osiris from Set. Set attempted to attack the body of Osiris by transforming himself into a leopard. Anubis stopped and subdued Set, however, and he human branding Set's skin with a hot iron rod. Anubis then flaying Set and wore his skin as a warning against evil-doers who would desecrate the necropolis. Priests who attended to the dead wore leopard skin in order to commemorate Anubis's victory over Set. The legend of Anubis branding the hide of Set in leopard form was used to explain how the leopard got its spots.
Most ancient tombs had prayers to Anubis carved on them.
In the early dynastic period, he was depicted in animal form, as a black canine. Anubis's distinctive black color did not represent the animal, rather it had several symbolic meanings. It represented "the discolouration of the corpse after its treatment with natron and the smearing of the wrappings with a resinous substance during mummification." Being the color of the fertile silt of the Nile, to Egyptians, black also symbolized fertility and the possibility of rebirth in the afterlife. In the Middle Kingdom, Anubis was often portrayed as a man with the head of a jackal. The African wolf was the species depicted and the template of numerous Ancient Egyptian deities, including Anubis. An extremely rare depiction of him in anthropomorphism was found in a chapel of Ramesses II in Abydos.
Anubis is often depicted wearing a ribbon and holding a nḫ3ḫ3 "flail" in the crook of his arm. Another of Anubis's attributes was the jmy-wt or imiut fetish, named for his role in embalming. 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.
Anubis had male priests who sported wood masks with the god's likeness when performing rituals. His cult center was at Cynopolis in Upper Egypt but memorials were built everywhere and he was universally revered in every part of the nation.
History
In Egypt's Early Dynastic period (), Anubis was portrayed in full animal form, with a "jackal" head and body. A jackal god, probably Anubis, is depicted in stone inscriptions from the reigns of Hor-Aha, Djer, and other pharaohs of the First Dynasty. Since Predynastic Egypt, when the dead were buried in shallow graves, jackals had been strongly associated with cemeteries because they were scavengers which uncovered human bodies and ate their flesh. In the spirit of "fighting like with like," a jackal was chosen to protect the dead, because "a common problem (and cause of concern) must have been the digging up of bodies, shortly after burial, by jackals and other wild dogs which lived on the margins of the cultivation."
Roles
Embalmer
As jmy-wt (Imiut or the Imiut fetish) "He who is in the place of embalming", Anubis was associated with mummification. He was also called ḫnty zḥ-nṯr "He who presides over the god's booth", in which "booth" could refer either to the place where embalming was carried out or the pharaoh's burial chamber.
Protector of tombs
Anubis was a protector of and cemeteries. Several epithets attached to his name in Egyptian texts and inscriptions referred to that role. Khenti-Amentiu, which means "foremost of the westerners" and was also the name of a different Khenti-Amentiu, alluded to his protecting function because the dead were usually buried on the west bank of the Nile. He took other names in connection with his funerary role, such as tpy-ḏw.f (Tepy-djuef) "He who is upon his mountain" (i.e. keeping guard over tombs from above) and nb-t3-ḏsr (Neb-ta-djeser) "Lord of the sacred land", which designates him as a god of the desert necropolis.
Guide of souls
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. Though a similar role was sometimes performed by the cow-headed Hathor, Anubis was more commonly chosen to fulfill that function. 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. 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.
Weigher of hearts
One of the roles of Anubis was as the "Guardian of the Scales." 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 Maat, who was often represented as an ostrich feather, Anubis dictated the fate of souls. Souls heavier than a feather would be devoured by Ammit, and souls lighter than a feather would ascend to a heavenly existence.
Portrayal in art
Anubis was one of the most frequently represented deities in ancient Egyptian art. He is depicted in royal tombs as early as the First Dynasty. The god is typically treating a king's corpse, providing sovereign to mummification rituals and funerals, or standing with fellow gods at the Weighing of the Heart of the Soul in the Hall of Two Truths. One of his most popular representations is of him, with the body of a man and the head of a jackal with pointed ears, standing or kneeling, holding a gold scale while a heart of the soul is being weighed against Ma'at's white truth feather.
(2025). 9780500519844, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500519844
File:Casa degli Amorini Dorati. Fresco. 09.JPG|Anubis, Harpocrates, Isis and Serapis, antique fresco in Pompeii, Italy
File:Stela of Siamun and Taruy worshipping Anubis MET 90.6.128 01.jpg|Stela of Siamun and Taruy worshipping Anubis
File:The King with Anubis, Tomb of Haremhab MET DP234736.jpg|The king with Anubis, from the tomb of Horemheb; 1323-1295 BC; tempera on paper; Metropolitan Museum of Art
File:Anubis Amulet MET DP109371.jpg|Anubis amulet; 664–30 BC; faience; height: 4.7 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
File:Recumbent Anubis MET DP228716.jpg|Recumbent Anubis; 664–30 BC; limestone, originally painted black; height: 38.1 cm, length: 64 cm, width: 16.5 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
File:Statuette of Anubis MET 38.5 EGDP022863.jpg|Statuette of Anubis; 332–30 BC; plastered and painted wood; 42.3 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Worship
Although he does not appear in many myths, he was extremely popular with Egyptians and those of other cultures. The Greeks linked him to their god Hermes, the god who guided the dead to the afterlife. The pairing was later known as Hermanubis. Anubis was heavily worshipped because, despite modern beliefs, he gave the people hope. People marveled in the guarantee that their body would be respected at death, their soul would be protected and justly judged.
See also
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
(2025). 9789774372315, American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 9789774372315
External links
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