PERSEPHONE ─ INFORMATION GUIDE

ANUBIS

ANUBIS

Anubis was originally a god of the underworld, but became widely known as the god of death, embalming, funerals, and mourning ceremonies. Though he has the body of a man, his head is that of a jackal, which is a native African animal known for scavenging and hunting.

Egytpian jackals were closely associated with death because they were often found found digging up buried bodies and eating them, which leads people to believe this may have been why Anubis was depicted as half jackal. Priests who mummified pharaohs wore costumes to make them appear like jackals.

The Egytpians believed Anubis helped to decide the fate of the dead in the afterlife. To see if the deceased was worthy of going into the afterlife, they weighed the heart of the dead against the feather of truth (which represented the goddess Ma'at, who was the goddess of law, justice and morality).

If the person lived a malicious, evil life, their heart would be heavy with their evilness, and they would be eaten by Ammit (The Devourer). If the person was kind and good, their heart would be light, and they were welcomed into the afterlife to meet Osiris (god of the Afterlife).

Anubis is known to be a very ancient deity whose name was mentioned in the oldest mastabas* of the Old Kingdom and the Pyramid Texts as a guardian and protector of the deceased.

His name was from the same root as the word for a royal child "inpu", which was also closely related to the word "inp", meaning "to decay." Once he was adopted by the King, Osiris, it is possible that his name was altered slightly.

Originally, he had been related to the Ogdoad*, as the god of the underworld. Associated with the Eye of Horus* in The Pyramid Texts of Unas, Anubis is more often depicted as a guide to the dead and helped them to find their way to Osiris.

In other myths, where the process of the heart of the dead being weighed against the feather of truth existed, Anubis and Wepwawet (an ancient wolf god) led the deceased to the halls of Ma'at to be judged. There, they would watch the whole scene and ensure the weighing of the heart was conducted correctly. Anubis continued to lead the innocent onto a happy, heavenly afterlife, while the guilty were abandoned to Ammit.

The Egyptians believed that the preservation of corpses and the use of sweet-smelling herbs and plants would cause Anubis to sniff out the mummy and let the pure move onto paradise.

According to early myths, Anubis faced and defeated the nine bows (the name for the traditional enemies of Egypt), which gained him a further epithet as the "Jackal ruler of the bows".

When the growing power of the Ennead of Heliopolis resulted in the merging of the two religious systems, Anubis was relegated to the god of mummification because Osiris was favoured as the King of the Underworld in the Ennead.

Anubis overlapped with and eventually absored the Jackal god of Wepwawet when he became the patron of lost souls, including orphans, and the patron of the funeral rites.

He became associated the Greek messenger god Hermes during the Ptolemic Period. Anubis was worshipped in Rome until the second century and was popular with Rennaisance alchemists and philosophers.

In the Valley of Kings, most tombs were sealed with an image of Anubis subduing "the nine bows" as "Jackal Ruler of the Bows", thinking that the god would protect the burial physically and spiritually.

"Tpy-djuf" ("he who is on his mountain") is one of his epithets that refers to him guarding the necropolis* and keeping watch from the hill above the Theban necropolis. Because he guarded the entrance to the Underworld, Anubis was also given the epithet "khentyamentiu", meaning "foremost of the westerners", i.e. the deceased.

Originally, Anubis was believed to be the son of Ra (the sun god) and Hesat (the cow god and Ra's wife), but he was later identified in newer myths to be the child of Osiris and Nephthys (the protector goddess of the dead), or Set (the storm god who was apart of the Ennead of Heliopolis) and Nephthys.

Sometimes, he was told to be the son of Bast, the cat goddess, because of her link to the perfumed oils used in embalming.

Anubis's wife and female aspect, Anput, was only really referred to in association with the seventeenth nome* of Upper Egypt. It is thought that he and Anput were the parents of Kebechet, the goddess of purification.

Near the cemeteries were the dead were buried, dogs and jackals alike often stalked the edges of the desert, and because of this it is thought that the first tombs were built to protect the dead from them.

The center of Anubis's cult that worshipped him was located in Hardai (Cynopolis), though he was also worshipped throughout Egypt. A shine and a cemetery of mummified dogs and jackals was discovered to the east of Saqqara, in a place known as Anubeion. He was also worshipped in cult centers in Abt (the eight nome of Upper Egypt) and Saut (Asyut, in the thirteenth nome of Upper Egypt).

GLOSSARY

* mastabas - An ancient Egyptian tomb consisting of an underground burial chamber with rooms above it (at ground level) to store offerings.

* Ogdoad - A group of eight primordial deities worshipped in Hermopolis.

* the Eye of Horus - An ancient Egyptian symbol of protection, royal power, and wealth.

* necropolis - A cemetery, specifically a large one that belongs to an ancient city.

* nomes - twenty-two areas that were divided in Upper Egypt that are called Nomes.