Anubis (Anpu)
Anubis supervised the embalming as Lord-of-the-Booth (i.e. the booth where embalming was performed), took the dead as the "conductor of souls" to be weighed before the judge of the infernal regions and guarded the Cities of the Dead.
The Speech of Anpu:He was represented as a canine, perhaps a jackal, a kind of wild dog or perhaps a guard dog. Therianthropically he was depicted with a canine head and tail. As the main subordinate of Osiris he was in charge of order in the Beyond:
Anubis the dweller in the mummy chamber, Governor of the Divine House, layeth his hands upon the lord of life, the scribe, the draughtsman of Ptah, Nebseni, the lord of fealty, begotten of the scribe and mason Thena, born of the lady of the house Mut-rest, whose word is truth, and devoting himself to him as his guardian, saith:-
Homage to thee, thou happy one, lord! Thou seest the Utchat. Ptah-Seker hath bound thee up. Anpu hath exalted thee. Shu hath raised thee up, O Beautiful Face, thou governor of eternity. Thou hast thine eye, O scribe Nebseni, lord of fealty, and it is beautiful. Thy right eye is like the Sektet Boat, thy left eye is like the Atet Boat. Thine eyebrows are fair to see in the presence of the Company of the Gods. Thy brow is under the protection of Anpu, and thy head and face, O beautiful one, are before the holy Hawk. Thy fingers have been stablished by thy scribe's craft in the presence of the Lord of Khemenu, Thoth, who hath bestowed upon thee the knowledge of the speech of the holy books. Thy beard is beautiful in the sight of Ptah-Seker, and thou, O scribe Nebseni, thou lord of fealty, art beautiful before the Great Company of the Gods. The Great God looketh upon thee, and he leadeth thee along the path of happiness. Sepulchral meals are bestowed upon thee, and he overthroweth for thee thine enemies, setting them under thy feet in the presence of the Great Company of the Gods who dwell in the House of the Great Aged One which is in Anu.From the Papyrus of Nebseni, Brit. Mus. No. 9900, Sheet 14, ll. 16ff.
Who are the gods who are in the train of Horus?But Anubis was more than a benevolent usher of the dead
"[They are] Kesta, Hapi, Taumutef, and Qebhsenuf. "Homage to you, O ye lords of right and truth, ye sovereign princes (Tchatcha) who [stand] round about Osiris, who do away utterly sins and offences, and who are in the following of the goddess Hetepsekhus, grant ye that I may come unto you. Destroy ye all the faults which are within me, even as ye did for the Seven Spirits who are among the followers of their lord Sepa. Anpu (Anubis) appointed to them their places on the day [when he said unto them], "Come ye hither."
.......
As concerning the Seven Spirits who are Kesta, Hapi, Tuamutef, Qebhsenuf, Maa-atef, Kheribeqef and Heru-khenti-en-ariti, these did Anubis appoint to be protectors of the dead body of Osiris.
Others, however, say that he set them round about the holy place of Osiris.From the Papyrus of Ani
Deliver thou the scribe Nebseni, whose word is truth, from the Watchers, who carry murderous knives, who possess cruel fingers, and who would slay those who are in the following of Osiris.
May these Watchers never gain the mastery over me, and may I never fall under their knives!
Who are these Watchers?
They are Anubis and Horus, [the latter being] in the form of Horus the sightless.From the Papyrus of Nebseni, Brit. Mus. No. 9900, Sheet 14, ll. 16ff.
His parents were usually given as Osiris [1] in combination with either Nephthys [2] or Isis, but in some myths he was fathered by Re or Seth, [3] while as mother Hesat [4] and Bastet [5] are mentioned. After the early period of the Old Kingdom, he was superseded by Osiris as god of the dead, being relegated to a supporting role as a god of the funeral cult and of the care of the dead. The black colour represented the colour of human corpses after they had undergone the embalming process.
In the Book of the Dead, he was depicted as presiding over the weighing of the heart of the deceased in the Hall of the Two Truths.
His principal sanctuary was at the necropolis in Memphis and in other cities. Anubis was also known as Khenty- Imentiu - "Chief of the Westerners" - a reference to the Egyptian belief that the realm of the dead lay to the west in association with the setting sun, and to their custom of building cemeteries on the west bank of the Nile.
The Greeks equated him with Hermes (Hermanubis).
Bibliography:
John Gwyn Griffiths, The Origins of Osiris and His Cult, Brill 1980
Robert A. Armour, Gods and Myths of Ancient Egypt, American Univ in Cairo Press 2001
Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, Loeb Classical Library, 1936
E. A. Wallis Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani
Footnotes:
[1] The Encyclopedia Americana, Grolier Incorporated 1988, p.84
[2] W. Max Muller, Egyptian Mythology, Kessinger Publishing 2004, p.117
[3] Lewis Spence, Ancient Egyptian Myths and Legends, Courier Dover Publications 1990, p.99
[4] James Stevens Curl, The Egyptian Revival: Ancient Egypt as the Inspiration for Design Motifs in the West,Routledge 2005, p.440
[5] Aayko Eyma ed., A Delta-Man in Yebu: Occasional Volume of the Egyptologists' Electronic Forum No. 1, Universal-Publishers.com 2003, p.219
