by Terry McCombs

Terry McCombs maintained the "God/dess of the Month Club" on soc.religion.paganism for several years, producing monthly profiles of deities drawn from across the world's traditions. His approach was comparative and eclectic, treating each deity as a window into a shared human experience rather than the exclusive property of any one culture.

His August 2007 entry profiles Anubis — one of the most recognizable figures of ancient Egyptian religion. Jackal-headed, black-skinned, weigher of hearts — Anubis presided over the art of embalming, the crossing of the dead into the Duat, and the moment of judgment that determined whether a soul passed to eternal life or was devoured by the beast Ammit. McCombs traces the god's tangled parentage, his cross-cultural counterparts (Nergal, Arawn, Mictlantecuhtli, Yen Wang Yeh), and the specific ritual role of the weighing of the heart against the Feather of Maat.

He closes, characteristically, with a protest against the god's treatment in popular cinema — and a note that Kali fares no better. Preserved here from the Usenet archive as a document of early internet-era comparative paganism.

Name: Anpu, Anup, Sekhem Em Pet, Khenty Imentiu ("Chief of the Westerners") — or, as the Greeks called him, Anubis.

Symbols: A black and white ox-hide splattered with blood and hanging from a pole. Also the different implements of embalming. Also the constellation of Canis Major.

Usual Image: Sometimes shown as a black man with the head of a jackal or dog; the black color is not natural but is thought to be a symbolic color representing death and rebirth, as well as the effect that natron and other resins used in mummification have on the body. Sometimes he is depicted with one half of his head gold and one half black, to show that he is most divine and yet in touch with the earth.

Holy Books: The Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Holy Days: The Summer Solstice.

Places of Worship: Heliopolis; the City of Dogs, which the Greeks called Cynopolis.

Relatives: Nephthys (Mother); Ra or Set (Father — versions vary as to which); Osiris, Isis, Set (Siblings).

Synodeities: Nergal (Babylonian), Arawn (Celtic), Mictlantecuhtli (Aztec), Yen Wang Yeh (Chinese), Hel (Norse), Pluto (Greek), Azrael the Angel of Death (Christian).

In ancient Egypt, Anpu or Anubis was the jackal-headed god of embalming who guided the souls of the dead through the underworld kingdom of his father, Osiris.

Considered benevolent and good, Anubis was present in the underworld (the Duat) at the weighing of the dead person's soul, and was also at home in the heavenly sky realms of Ra.

His mother was the goddess Nephthys, who along with Isis, Set, and Osiris were the children of the sky goddess Nut and the earth god Geb. Nephthys was married to her brother Set, and Isis was married to her brother Osiris.

Occasionally Anubis is considered the son of Set, but in the more prevalent myth, Nephthys left Set and seduced her sister's husband, Osiris — or, as some myths say, Ra the Sun God. She conceived Anubis, but when he was born she abandoned him in the wilderness. Isis found Anubis with the aid of some dogs, and she raised him.

When Anubis grew up, he guarded his foster mother faithfully, and he accompanied Isis and Osiris whenever they journeyed through the world.

When Set murdered and dismembered his brother Osiris, the sisters Isis and Nephthys searched for his body. When they found all the pieces of Osiris's body, it was Anubis who invented the art of embalming and mummification so that his father (or step-father) could live again and reign in the world of the dead.

Anubis is often depicted as a man with the head of a jackal or a dog, but is sometimes shown as having the body of a jackal or dog as well. Sometimes he is depicted with one side of his face white or golden and the other black; at other times as being completely black but holding a green palm leaf aloft, to symbolize his position in both the heavenly as well as the earthly realms.

Anubis was also the god of poisons and medicines, due to his supplying such things during the mummification of Osiris.

The Weighing of the Heart

Anubis had the duty of weighing the heart of a dead person on a balance against the Feather of Truth (for the record, while it was an ostrich feather, it still had to have been pretty light) that was supplied by Maat, the Goddess of Truth. Anubis's role was to carefully observe the procedure to make sure that it was properly done.

If, according to the Great Balance, the person was not pure and honest and free of sin, Anubis would take the heart from the scale and throw it to the beast Ammit, who would devour it, destroying the person forever. If, on the other hand, the scale showed that the deceased was free of sin, the soul could go on to eternal life.

For the most part Anubis was considered a benevolent deity; however, there were times when he was regarded with terror.

But be that as it may, that still does not excuse the dissing that Anubis gets in the recent special-effects-and-bad-writing epic The Return of the Mummy. For a similar case see the Goddess Kali versus Indiana Jones for libel.

— Terry McCombs

Colophon

Written and posted by Terry McCombs to soc.religion.paganism on August 31, 2007, as part of his monthly "God/dess of the Month Club" series, which profiled deities from across the world's traditions. Original Message-ID: [email protected].

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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