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Anubis, an ancient Egyptian deity with the head of a jackal and body of a man, was the guardian of the dead and oversaw the weighing of the heart against the “feather of truth.” As Osiris became more popular, Anubis was relegated to a secondary role as guardian of the departed soul and master of the embalming process. The association with jackals may stem from their common presence in tombs. Cinopolis was the capital of the Anubis cult, and during the Ptolemaic period, Anubis was associated with the Greek god Hermes and called Hermanubis.
One of the original deities of ancient Egypt, whose origins date back to the Old Kingdom, Anubis, guardian and protector of the dead, was commonly depicted with the head of a jackal and the body of a man. According to Egyptian tradition, the jackal god was in charge of the process by which the heart of the deceased was weighed in scales against the “feather of truth.” If the soul in question proved heavier than the feather, a guilty verdict was rendered and the results recorded for eternity by the god Thoth, who acted as scribe during the proceedings. The innocents were later escorted by Anubis to the celestial realm, while the souls of the guilty were thrown into a lake of fire to be consumed, or fed to a terrible deity named Ammit.
Amidst the changes of the Middle Kingdom, as Osiris grew in popularity, the god Anubis was relegated to a more secondary role in the hierarchy of the underworld. With Osiris assuming the mantle of ruler of the dead, Anubis’ role became that of guardian of the departed soul. As Anubis had traditionally been the god of mummification and burial rites, he also retained this role. In an attempt to explain the shift in power among the gods, Anubis was attributed to the son of Osiris and Nephthys, rather than a god of Osiris’s stature who had simply been degraded.
As a master of the embalming process, which involved the removal of various internal organs, the jackal-headed god was said to possess great knowledge of human anatomy. The priests of Anubis were, therefore, not only skilled healers, using their knowledge of the body and its functions, but also trained in anesthesiology.
During certain periods of Egyptian history, the priests of Anubis wore jackal masks on their heads in honor of their deity, while performing the embalming process. Some historians speculate that the Egyptian association with Anubis and the jackal stems from the fact that jackals were common visitors to tombs. As scavengers who fed on corpses, it is plausible that the concepts of death and the jackal became synonymous in the minds of the early Egyptians. Some scholars have even suggested that the earliest tombs of the Egyptians were built not only to honor deceased rulers but also to protect their bodies from the ravages of wild animals.
Although Anubis was revered throughout Egypt as an afterlife deity, Cinopolis in Upper Egypt was the capital of the Anubis cult, and archaeologists have unearthed the mummified remains of jackals and other types of dogs in this region. During the Ptolemaic period, the Egyptian Anubis was also associated with the Greek god Hermes, the messenger deity, and obtained the name Hermanubis, a combination of the two names.
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