Anubis
Before his role was usurped by Osiris, Anubis was the premier Egyptian funerarygod who ruled over the dead. Anubis protected elaboratecemeteries, preserved the bodies of the dead,and guided souls to the afterlife. Anubis is represented as a black caninewith tall, pointed ears and a bushy tail or as a man with the head of such an animal. Thecolor of Anubis’s fur has been interpreted asboth the black skin of a rotting corpse and the black mud of fertile farmland. Anubis attended to the scales in whichthe hearts of the deceased were weighedagainst maat (truth), while Osiris pronounced judgment. During the mummification process,a priest known as the master of secrets probably wore a mask and played the part of thecanine god. Anubis’s background varies considerablyin different sources. According to the Greekauthor Plutarch (Osiris mis-took the goddess Nephthys for his wife, Isis,and impregnated her. Their child was Anubis.Isis raised Anubis, the product of this acciden-tal affair, as her own son. Other texts name thecat goddess, Bastet, or a cow goddess as hismother, and later texts identify his father asOsiris, Re, or even Seth.A peculiar symbol of Anubis is the imiut fetish, which, in ancient times, was identi-fiedwith an earlier god, Imiut. This object consists of the stuffed skin of a beheaded animal tied by its tail to a pole, which rests inapot.The Greeks and Romans identified Anu-bis with the god Hermes Hermanubis. Noreen Doyle See also: Death; Dogs