Anubis

Anubis

Anubis, everyone's favorite doggo headed god, is the Egyptian and some times Greek and Roman god of death, mummification, embalming, the afterlife, cemeteries, tombs, and the Underworld. Depicted as a protector of graves, Anubis was also an embalmer. Later he was replaced by Osiris in his role as lord of the underworld. One of his prominent roles was as a god who ushered souls into the afterlife. He attended the weighing scale during the weighing , in which it was determined whether a soul would be allowed to enter the realm of the dead.

Depicted as a canine or a man with a canine head. The head was believed to be the African Golden Jackal, but some nerds did some DNA analysis and found the Jackal species is a wolf, so wolf would be more appropriate.

Like many ancient Egyptian deities, Anubis assumed different roles in various contexts and also mixed in with nearby religions.

Anubis was depicted in black, a color that symbolized regeneration, life, the soil of the Nile River, and the discoloration of the corpse after embalming. Anubis is associated with his brother Wepwawet, another Egyptian god portrayed with a dog's head or in canine form, but with grey or white fur. Nerds assume that the two figures were eventually combined.

Family Relations

Anubis' female counterpart is Anput. His daughter is the serpent goddess Kebechet.

Historical Rites and Rituals

In contrast to real wolves which are opportunistic scavengers, Anubis was a protector of graves and cemeteries. Most ancient tombs had prayers to Anubis carved on them. There was also the name of a different canine funerary god, alluded to his protecting function because the dead were usually buried on the west bank of the Nile. Anubis took other names in connection with his funerary role, such as tpy-ḏw.f "He who is upon his mountain"; keeping guard over tombs from above, and nb-t3-ḏsr "Lord of the sacred land", which designates him as a god of the desert necropolis.

Embalmer and Psychopomp

As jmy-wt "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.

The Opening of the Mouth ceremony involved a symbolic animation of a statue or mummy by magically opening its mouth so that it could breathe and speak. A priest wearing a wooden Anubis. There is evidence of this ritual from the Old Kingdom to the Roman Period. Special tools were used to perform the ceremony, such as a ritual adze, an arm shaped ritual censer, a spooned blade known as a peseshkaf, a serpent-head blade, and a variety of other amulets. A calf's leg was also held up to the lips painted on the coffin.

The ancient Egyptians believed that in order for a person's soul to survive in the afterlife it would need to have food and water. The opening of the mouth ritual was thus performed so that the person who died could eat and drink again in the afterlife.

The ceremony involved up to 75 "episodes" and, in its most complete version, and you can google these.

Historical Mythology

In one of the many Osiris myths (Jumilhac papyrus) 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 branded Set's skin with a hot iron rod. Anubis then flayed Set and wore his skin as a warning against evil-doers who would desecrate the tombs of the dead. Priests who attended to the dead wore leopard skin in order to commemorate Anubis' 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.

In the Osiris myth, Anubis helped Isis to embalm Osiris. 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.

Later Anubis was often depicted as guiding individuals across the threshold from the world of the living to the afterlife. Hathor was also found in this role, Anubis was more commonly depicted. Greek writers from the Roman period of Egyptian history designated that role as that of "psychopomp", originally 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.

Weighing of the heart The "weighing of the heart," from the book of the dead. Anubis is portrayed as both guiding the deceased forward and manipulating the scales, under the scrutiny of the ibis-headed Thoth with Ammit and Ma'at present.

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 Ma'at), who was often represented as an ostrich feather, Anubis dictated the fate of souls. Souls heavier than a feather would be nomed by Ammit, and souls lighter than a feather would ascend to the afterlife of Osiris.