Anubis was the jackal-headed Egyptian god of embalming, mummification and the dead — the guardian of the tombs and the cemeteries, the inventor of embalming who prepared the dead for the afterlife, and the guide who led souls into the underworld and oversaw the weighing of their hearts. One of the oldest and most iconic gods of Egypt, he is the dark protector of the dead and the master of the mysteries of death.
The Jackal of the Dead
Anubis (Egyptian Anpu, Inpu) was depicted as a jackal or as a man with a jackal's (or wild dog's) head, usually black — the colour of the fertile Nile silt and of resurrection, and of the discolouration of the embalmed corpse. The choice of the jackal was telling: jackals prowled the desert edges of the cemeteries where the dead were buried, and by making the jackal a protective god rather than a scavenger, the Egyptians turned the threat to the tombs into their guardian. Anubis was one of the most ancient of the Egyptian gods, a lord of the dead from the earliest times, later somewhat overshadowed by Osiris but always central to the rites of death.
The Inventor of Embalming
Anubis's great office was embalming and mummification. In the central myth, when Osiris was murdered and dismembered by Set, it was Anubis who — with Isis and Nephthys — gathered and bound the body and performed the first embalming, inventing the process of mummification and making Osiris the first mummy. Ever after, Anubis was the patron and master of embalming: the priests who mummified the dead wore masks of Anubis, and it was Anubis who was believed to oversee the embalming of every Egyptian, preserving the body so that the soul might live forever. He was the lord of the embalming-place and the keeper of the secrets of preserving the dead.
The Guide and the Weigher of Hearts
Anubis was also the guide of souls and a key figure in the judgement of the dead. He led the deceased through the dangers of the underworld to the Hall of Judgement; and there, in the great ceremony of the Weighing of the Heart, it was Anubis who placed the heart of the dead person upon the scales and weighed it against the feather of Ma'at (truth and justice), carefully adjusting the balance. If the heart was light — free of the weight of sin — the soul was granted eternal life with Osiris; if it was heavy, it was devoured by the monster Ammit. Anubis thus stood at the very crux of the Egyptian afterlife, the impartial overseer of the test that decided every soul's eternal fate.
The Guardian of the Threshold
Anubis endures as one of the most iconic gods of ancient Egypt — the black jackal-headed lord of embalming, the guardian of the tombs, the inventor of mummification, the guide of souls, and the weigher of hearts. He embodies the Egyptian preoccupation with death and the afterlife, and their determination to conquer death through the preservation of the body and the justice of the soul; and he remains the great dark guardian standing at the threshold between the living and the dead, preparing the dead for eternity and weighing their hearts against the truth.
The black jackal who guards the tombs invented embalming to make Osiris the first mummy — and weighs every soul's heart against the feather of truth at the gate of eternity.