Anubis

Who Anubis actually is

Anubis (jnpw — "the royal child" or "the prince," referring to his princely-jackal status in the funerary court) is the foundational *funerary deity* of Egyptian religion, predating Osiris in the cult-chronology and originally functioning as *the* god of the dead before being absorbed into the Osirian cycle as the loyal embalmer-and-conductor. In the Pyramid Texts (c. 2400-2300 BCE) Anubis is already the chief funerary god, the *Khentamentiu* ("foremost of the Westerners," the title later transferred to Osiris when the Osirian cult absorbed the older Anubis-cult). His later mythology, as recorded in Plutarch, makes him the son of Nephthys (Set's wife and Isis's sister) and Osiris — Nephthys, disguised as Isis, seduced Osiris; Anubis was the child of that union, abandoned by Nephthys (who feared Set's wrath), found and raised by Isis, and grown to become Osiris's loyal *embalmer* after Set murdered his father. The *Embalming of Osiris* is therefore the *first* embalming, and Anubis is the *first* embalmer — every subsequent Egyptian mummification was understood as a ritual reenactment of that primordial embalming, with the embalmer-priest wearing the *jackal-mask of Anubis* during the seventy-day mummification process. The *Weighing of the Heart* (Book of the Dead Spell 125, the most-reproduced Egyptian funerary scene): the dead is led into the Hall of Two Truths by Anubis, who operates the *scales* on which the heart is weighed against the *feather of Ma'at* (cosmic truth); Thoth records the result; if the heart balances, the dead becomes *justified before Osiris* (mꜣꜥ-ḫrw); if the heart is heavier, *Ammit* (the devourer, a composite-monster of crocodile-lion-hippopotamus) eats the heart and the dead ceases to exist. Anubis's role is the *operator of the scales* — the precise, neutral, technical functionary whose work is *correct measurement*. The *jackal* is the iconographic source because jackals scavenged the early Egyptian cemetery-burials (which were shallow, in the desert margin) — Anubis is the jackal *turned protective*, the scavenger-of-the-dead reassigned as their *guardian*. *Wepwawet* ("opener of the ways") is Anubis's twin-aspect, the wolf-jackal who leads the dead through the underworld passages.

Iconography

Black-jackal-headed man, or full jackal recumbent on top of a shrine-chest (the iconography of the Tutankhamun shrine, the single most-reproduced Anubis image in modern collections). The black color is *not* the color of jackals (real jackals are tawny-grey-brown) but is the color of *Kemet* (the black silt, the fertile-Nile-mud — the same blackness as Osiris's skin) and of the *embalming-tar* — Anubis is *symbolically* black because he is the *transformer-of-the-body-through-the-blackness-of-the-tar-into-the-resurrection-green-of-Osiris*. He frequently holds the *ankh* (life) and the *was-sceptre* (dominion). In the embalming-scenes (preserved in countless tomb-paintings) he is shown bent over the mummified body on the embalming-bench, performing the *Opening of the Mouth* ceremony with the *peseshkef* (the ritual flint blade) and the *adze*. In the Weighing-of-the-Heart scenes he stands beside the scales, often adjusting the plumb-bob.

How to invoke Anubis

Sunset (the going-into-the-West, the threshold Anubis guards). At the moment of a death (literal or figurative — the death of a chapter, a marriage, a job). Offer: incense (myrrh especially — the canonical funerary incense), water, the black-cloth (a small swatch of black linen is the traditional ritual-offering at the embalming-shrine), the ankh-amulet. The traditional invocation is the *htp-di-nsw* offering-formula directed specifically to Anubis: *"An offering which the king gives to Anubis, He-who-is-upon-his-mountain, Lord of the Sacred Land, that he may give a good burial in the western necropolis to the ka of [name]."* Especially called by morticians, undertakers, hospice workers, palliative-care doctors, grief-counselors, end-of-life-doulas (the entire modern *deathwork* profession is Anubis-work, whether or not it is named as such); by anyone *at the moment of a death* (literal or figurative — the closing of a chapter, the end of a relationship, the death of a project); by anyone *operating the scales* (anyone whose work is precise-measurement, weighing, judging — auditors, judges, editors, peer-reviewers — the Weighing-of-the-Heart register is theirs); by anyone facing their *own* Weighing-of-the-Heart (a major life-review, a tribunal, a therapeutic-reckoning, an end-of-year accounting).

In love

Anubis in love is the partner *who can be with the dying* — who does not flinch from the bedside, who does the long-vigil work, who is willing to be present for the actual moment when the relationship-or-the-person crosses over. Anubis-energy in a partnership is *the deathwork-register* — the love that is willing to do the embalming, to wash the body, to lead the soul through the threshold. The shadow is the partner who has *become* Anubis to the exclusion of all other registers — who can only function in crisis, who is always preparing for the death rather than living the life. The other shadow: the partner who has *taken Anubis's job from a previous death and never put it down* — who is still mummifying a relationship that died years ago, still leading the dead-soul to a Weighing-of-the-Heart that already happened.

In work

Anubis in work is the deathworker (any of the modern professions named in the invocation section); the editor-with-the-scales (the operator of the precise-measurement, the technical-functionary whose job is exact-weighing); the threshold-guide (the consultant who specializes in transitions — the bankruptcy-attorney, the divorce-mediator, the change-management-specialist, the executor-of-the-estate); the embalmer-of-failed-projects (the operations-person who does the post-mortem-and-the-knowledge-archive when a project dies). Anubis-energy is *the work-that-honors-the-dying*. The shadow is the workplace whose Anubis has been *exiled* (the company that cannot do post-mortems, cannot honor failures, cannot let dead projects be dead) — and the unprocessed-corpses that accumulate in the basement, eventually rotting through the foundation. The other shadow: the Anubis-figure whose neutrality has slipped into *cruelty* — the auditor who has stopped distinguishing measurement-from-punishment, the judge whose objectivity has become contempt.

The gift

Anubis gives the recognition that *deathwork is sacred-technical work*. The embalming, the threshold-leading, the Weighing-of-the-Heart — these are not horrors to be avoided, they are *precise crafts* requiring the jackal-skill of the one who can be neutral in the presence of the dead. The black color of Anubis is not the color of horror; it is the color of the fertile-silt that the body becomes in being transformed. The gift is the willingness to take up the embalming-tools and do the work that the moment requires — to be the one in the room who is not flinching, who knows the seventy-day protocol, who can operate the scales without trembling.

The shadow

Anubis is the *single-most-misrepresented* Egyptian deity in modern pop culture. The Mummy franchise (1999, 2001, 2008) cast him as a *villain*; Stargate SG-1 cast him as a *demonic Goa'uld*; the Kane Chronicles (Rick Riordan) cast him as a *moody teen-heartthrob*; countless RPGs and horror-films treat the jackal-head as inherently sinister. The original Egyptian Anubis is *the opposite of a villain* — he is the *protector* of the dead, the *guarantor* of correct funerary process, the *neutral operator* of the scales of cosmic justice. The flattening of Anubis-as-horror has done active damage to modern deathwork: hospice workers, morticians, end-of-life doulas, palliative-care professionals all do *Anubis-work*, and the cultural-erasure of Anubis as the *honored* patron of this work leaves them without iconography for what they do. The other shadow: 19th-c. Egyptomania-Anubis (the Theosophical and Hermetic Anubis-as-occult-initiator) frequently strips the *technical-embalmer* dimension and replaces it with a generic-psychopomp register. The third shadow: contemporary "Anubis-worship" subcultures (mostly furry-adjacent fandom or Egyptian-revival NeoPagan) frequently miss the *Weighing-of-the-Heart* register entirely — Anubis without the *scales* is not Anubis, and the seriousness of the measurement-function is the entire point of the cult. The fourth shadow: the *embalmer-priest wearing the jackal-mask* tradition (a real Egyptian ritual practice, attested in funerary papyri) has been frequently exoticized in modern occult-reception as a *necromantic* practice, when in the Egyptian source it was simply the *standard mortuary protocol* — the priest *was* Anubis during the seventy days; this is theological functionality, not horror.

Pair with