Anubis, (or Anpu) is the Greek name for the god associated with
mummification and life after death in the ancient Egyptian religion.
He is generally represented in canine form or as a man with a dog's head.
Most often, the god is painted wearing a ribbon and holding a cloak called a nekhakha in his hand.
Like many Egyptian deities, he also played various roles in different contexts.
In the First Dynasty (between 3100 BC and 2900 BC), Anubis was considered the protector of
the tombs and had the role of embalmer. Around the period of the Middle Kingdom
(around 2100 BC and 1700 BC) he is replaced by Osiris in the role of ruler of the afterlife.
One of the most important roles was that of the god who led the dead to the other world.
He participated in the trial during the "Weighing of the Heart" ceremony, in which it
was determined whether the soul of the deceased was allowed to enter the realm of the dead.
Despite being one of the oldest and "one of the most frequently mentioned
gods" in the Egyptian pantheon, Anubis had almost no involvement in Egyptian myths.
Anubis was always represented in black, a color that symbolizes both the rebirth, the fertile
color of the Nile, and the discoloration of bodies after the embalming ritual.
He is often associated with Wepwawet, another Egyptian god depicted with a dog's head or in
a canine shape, but with gray or white fur. The female equivalent of Anubis is Anput,
the goddess of funeral rituals and mummification.
During the Early Dynasty (between 3100 BC and 2700 BC), Anubis was portrayed entirely in animal form,
generally jackal. In predynastic Egypt, when the dead were buried in shallow graves,
jackals were strongly associated with cemeteries because they dug up human bodies and ate them.
Thus, the jackal was chosen as the protector of the dead.
The earliest textual mention of Anubis is in the texts of the Pyramids of the Old Kingdom
(between 2700 BC and 2200 BC), where it is associated with the burial of the pharaoh.
In the Old Kingdom, Anubis was the most important god of the dead, but in the Middle Kingdom he is
replaced by Osiris in this role. In the Roman period, starting from the year 30 BC, the
paintings in the tombs illustrate him holding the hand of the deceased and guiding them to Osiris.
In the final part of the Middle Kingdom, the god is often depicted by a wolf-headed man,
and very very rarely in full human form, as in the tomb of Ramses II of Abydos.
The descent of Anubis varies depending on myths, periods and sources. In early mythology,
he was considered the son of the god Ra. In the Texts of the Tomb,
written in the First Intermediate Period (around 2200 BC and 2060 BC),
Anubis is either the son of the cow-shaped goddess, Hesat, or the cat-headed goddess, Bastet.
The Greek philosopher and historian Plutarch, states that Anubis is the illegitimate son
of Nephthys with Osiris, adopted by his wife, Isis. A variation of this myth is that Nephthys,
the twin sister of the goddess Isis, seduces Seth, whose union results in Anubis. Fearing the God of
Revenge, Nephthys persuades his sister to adopt his son and present him as his son with Osiris.
In the Ptolemaic period (between 350 BC and 30 BC), when Egypt had become a Hellenistic
kingdom ruled by Greek pharaohs, Anubis merged with the Greek god Hermes, becoming Hermanubis.
The two gods were considered similar because they both guided souls in the afterlife. Evidence
shows that the resulting god was still worshiped until about the 2nd century in Rome. Hermanubis
also appears in the alchemical and hermetic literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Although the Greeks and Romans generally considered Egyptian gods with bizarre
and animal heads primitive, Anubis was sometimes associated with Sirius from the skies and Cerberus
and Hades from hell. In his dialogues, Plato often spoke to Socrates using phrases such as:
"in the name of the dog": or "in the name of the dog of Egypt": And "in the name of the dog,
the god of the Egyptians". both to emphasize and to use Anubis as the arbiter of truth in hell.
Anubis was associated with mummification, being nicknamed in ancient egyptian: imy-ut,
translated as: "The one who is in the place of embalming."
He was also called "the one who presides over the pavilion of the god", in which the pavilion
could refer to the place where the embalming or burial chamber of the pharaoh took place.
In the myth of Osiris, Anubis is the one who helps Isis to embalm Osiris.
Moreover, the myth says that the moment Seth kills Osiris, his organs were gave to Anubis. Thus,
Anubis becomes the protective god of embalmers - during mummification rituals,
illustrations from the Book of the Dead often depict a priest in a wolf mask holding the mummy.
Until the end of the pharaohs, the god was often described as the one who guided
individuals from the world of the living to the afterlife. Although a similar role was played
by the cow-headed goddess Hathor, Anubis was more often chosen to play this role.
Greek writers in the Roman period of Egyptian history attributed this psychopomp role to her,
with Hermes playing the same role. The funerary art of the period depicts him
guiding women and men dressed in Greek clothes, in the presence of Osiris,
who had long ago replaced Anubis in the role of ruler of the afterlife.
This was the story of Anubis. I hope that you enjoyed this episode of Mythos, the Historian.
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