Anubis

Patricia Podzorski on Anubis

Anubis is a god whose role is to guide the deceased to the afterlife. From earliest times he was the god who presided over the embalming rituals. He is depicted as a black jackal or a man with a jackal head, he is often lying down with his tail hanging straight down behind him. Anubis is responsible for safely leading the dead from the living world to the afterlife. His title is "Lord of the Mummy Wrappings."

Anubis was given an epithet such as "Lord of the hallowed land" and worshipped as the god of the dead before the rise of the worship of Osiris. He then became linked more specifically with embalming and mummification, and he was said to have wrapped the body of Osiris. Sometimes depicted as a man with a canine head, Anubis was always present in the judgment scene in the Book of the Dead weighing the deceased’s heart against the feather of truth, or ma’at. Anubis was also often represented lying on top of a shrine (as in cat. nos. 89, 93, and 94).