Anubis

Myth and origin

Anubis appears in the Pyramid Texts (c. 2400-2300 BCE) as the most prominent mortuary deity of the Old Kingdom. In the earliest layer of texts, the deceased king is identified with Anubis as much as with Osiris, and Anubis's functions—preparing the body, weighing the heart, conducting the soul—are foundational to Egyptian funerary religion. His jackal form derives from the desert jackals that scavenged at the edges of cemeteries; turning a potentially threatening animal into the divine protector of graves is a classic example of apotropaic transformation. His name Inpu may relate to inep, "decay" or "to putrefy," reframing the very process of decomposition under his sacred care.

In the developed mythological narrative preserved by Plutarch (On Isis and Osiris 14) and the Pyramid Texts, Anubis is the son of Osiris by Nephthys (Seth's wife and Osiris's sister), born of a single union when Nephthys disguised herself as Isis. Nephthys, fearing Seth's wrath, abandoned the infant; Isis found him, raised him as her own, and made him her devoted guardian. When Seth murdered and dismembered Osiris, it was Anubis who—at Isis and Nephthys's direction—conducted the first mummification, wrapping the gathered pieces in linen and performing the rituals that allowed Osiris to be revived. Thereafter Anubis became the divine prototype of every embalmer and the patron of the priesthood that performed this work.

Attributes and stories

You recognise Anubis by his jet-black jackal head atop a human body, his upright pointed ears, his black skin (the colour of resurrection and the fertile Nile silt, not of mourning in Egyptian symbolism), the flail he holds, and the imiut fetish—a headless, stuffed animal hide tied to a pole used in funerary ritual. He is often shown leaning over the deceased on the embalming table, performing the "opening of the mouth" ceremony with the ceremonial adze, or standing at the scales of judgement in the Hall of Two Truths. His chief cult centres were at Cynopolis ("Dog City") in Upper Egypt and at Saqqara, where vast catacombs containing millions of mummified jackals and dogs have been excavated.

In the weighing of the heart scene (Book of the Dead, Spell 125, c. 1550 BCE onward), Anubis adjusts the scales while Thoth records the verdict and Ammit, the devourer, waits below. The deceased's heart is placed on one pan, the feather of Ma'at (truth) on the other; if they balance, the soul is pronounced "true of voice" and admitted to the realm of Osiris. If not, Ammit consumes the heart and the soul is annihilated—the worst conceivable Egyptian fate. Anubis's priests, wearing jackal masks, performed the embalming rituals on real corpses, conducting the seventy-day process by which the body was transformed into a sah, a transfigured corpse fit for eternity. The Anubieion at Saqqara and similar shrines received offerings from pilgrims seeking aid for deceased relatives or healing in this life.

Modern reception

Anubis has been one of the most visible Egyptian deities in modern popular culture, from Boris Karloff's 1932 The Mummy to the franchise of The Mummy Returns (2001) to countless video games and graphic novels. Serious modern reception is centred in studies of death, mourning, and embalming culture: Erik Hornung, Salima Ikram (Death and Burial in Ancient Egypt, 2003), and John H. Taylor (Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, 2001). Jungian commentary treats Anubis as the archetype of the soul-guide (psychopomp), parallel to Hermes in the Greek tradition. James Hillman's The Dream and the Underworld (1979) places such figures at the centre of soul-work.

Astrologically, Anubis has affinities with Scorpio and the eighth house of death, transformation, and inheritance, and with Pluto and Saturn as planets of mortality and structural endings. The asteroid 1912 Anubis (discovered 1961) bears his name. In contemporary Kemetic spirituality and modern neo-pagan witchcraft, Anubis is invoked at funerals, in grief work, for protection during shadow work, and as guardian during initiatory descents. He is among the most-prayed-to Egyptian gods in contemporary practice. The mythological deity test may reveal his presence.

Symbolic depth

In the tarot, Anubis corresponds to Death (Arcanum XIII) as the great mortuary guide, and to Justice (XI or VIII) as the keeper of the scales. He also informs The Moon (XVIII) with its jackal-dogs in the lunar landscape, and The Hermit (IX) as the lantern-bearing guide through dark passages. The Crowley-Harris Thoth deck includes him explicitly in the Wheel of Fortune card. On the Kabbalistic Tree of Life he resonates with the path crossing the abyss and with Hod as the seat of psychopompic skill.

Symbolically, Anubis teaches that the work of attending to death is sacred. Every body needs an embalmer; every soul needs a guide; every grave needs a guardian. His black skin is not the colour of mourning but of fertile transformation—decomposition is the seed-bed of new life. His shadow is the obsessive identification with death that cannot return to the living, or the ghoul who serves the dead while neglecting the breathing. Working with this archetype invites you to take up the disciplines of conscious dying: tending to losses, sitting with grief, preparing what needs preparing rather than fleeing. Continue with Osiris, Isis, and Ma'at, or return to the main glossary.

Also known as

• Inpu
• Anpu
• Khentyamentiu
• Imy-ut
• Lord of the Sacred Land