Anubis

Lore & Background

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 embalmer. 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 god who ushered souls into the afterlife.

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 River, 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.

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, Greco-Roman writers sometimes syncretized Anubis with figures like Cerberus and Hades, but this was not part of canonical Egyptian belief. A modern speculative link to the star Sirius also has no basis in native Egyptian texts.

Roles & Functions in Egyptian Religion

Anubis occupied a remarkably versatile position within the Egyptian divine hierarchy, shifting his responsibilities across millennia. From the First Dynasty around 3100 BC, he served as a guardian of burial sites, a role born from the practical threat jackals posed to freshly interred bodies. He also functioned as an embalmer, overseeing the preparation of the dead. His most iconic duty was attending the Weighing of the Heart, where a deceased soul's organ was balanced against a feather to determine its eligibility for the afterlife.

During the Old Kingdom, he stood as the preeminent deity of the dead. However, by the Middle Kingdom, Osiris supplanted him as lord of the underworld, though Anubis retained his role as the soul's usher into the realm of the departed. In the Roman era, tomb paintings show him gently holding the hand of the deceased, guiding them toward Osiris. Despite being one of the most frequently depicted and referenced gods in the entire Egyptian pantheon, remarkably few major myths centered on him personally.

Iconography & Symbolism

The visual identity of Anubis is immediately striking: a canine or a humanoid figure crowned with a jackal's head. His consistent association with the color black carries layered meaning. Black symbolized regeneration and life, evoked the fertile soil deposited by the Nile's annual floods, and mirrored the darkening of a corpse following the embalming process. This chromatic choice thus tied the god simultaneously to the promise of new life and the reality of death.

Anubis is linked to Wepwawet, another canine-headed deity distinguished by grey or white fur, and scholars believe the two figures were eventually merged into a single divine identity. Within the family structure of the pantheon, his female counterpart is Anput, while his daughter is the serpent goddess Kebechet. In the Early Dynastic period, he appeared in full animal form with both jackal head and body, a representation rooted in the very scavenging behavior that made jackals both a threat to graves and, by the logic of symbolic counteraction, their natural protectors.

Name, Titles & Linguistic Heritage

The name Anubis is actually a Greek adaptation, first applied after Greek contact with Egypt around the seventh century BC. Before that, the god was known as Anpu or Inpu in Egyptian, a name whose root carries the meaning of a royal child. Interestingly, the Inpu root also connects to the word for decay, embedding a paradox of nobility and decomposition within a single name.

His hieroglyphic rendering in the Old Kingdom combined the sound signs inpw with a jackal perched atop a ḥtp sign, later evolving to place the jackal on a tall stand. His pronunciation may have been something like a-na-pa, reconstructed from Coptic and Akkadian transcriptions. Beyond his name, Anubis accumulated a remarkable catalogue of titles: First of the Westerners, Lord of the Sacred Land, Master of Secrets, He Who Is in the Place of Embalming, The Dog who Swallows Millions, and Ruler of the Nine Bows, each reflecting a distinct facet of his divine authority.

Cross-Cultural Legacy & Evolution

Anubis's parentage shifted dramatically across eras and sources, reflecting the fluidity of Egyptian theology. Early texts named him a son of Ra; the Coffin Texts made him offspring of Hesat or Bastet; other traditions paired Ra with Nephthys as his parents. The most widespread tradition identified him as the child of Osiris and Isis, though Plutarch recorded a variant in which Nephthys bore him through a mistaken union with Osiris, and Isis subsequently adopted him after dogs led her to the abandoned infant. During the Ptolemaic period, as Egypt became a Hellenistic kingdom, Anubis was syncretized with the Greek Hermes to produce Hermanubis, a fusion grounded in their shared role as guides of souls.

The cult centered on Cynopolis, a place whose Greek name means city of dogs. Apuleius's Golden Ass confirms the worship persisted in Rome into the second century, and Hermanubis resurfaced in medieval alchemical and hermetical texts. Even Plato's Socrates invoked the dog of Egypt as an oath of truth.

Common Misconceptions (Editorial)

Some people assume Anubis was always depicted with a canine head, but fact-checked records show he is also shown as a full canine. Another common error is believing that Anubis was always the chief god of the dead in Egyptian religion; in fact, he held that role primarily in the Old Kingdom and was later replaced by Osiris during the Middle Kingdom.

Why It Matters (Editorial)

Anubis endures because he embodies humanity’s enduring concern with death, transition, and moral judgment—questions that transcend any single culture or era. His striking image as a protective, jackal-headed guide continues to resonate in modern art, literature, and film, serving as a timeless symbol of the boundary between life and the unknown afterlife.

Reader's Guide

Anubis was a protector of graves and cemeteries. Several epithets attached to his name in Egyptian texts and inscriptions referred to that role. Khenty-Amentiu, which means 'foremost of the westerners' and 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. 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.

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.