ANUBIS. The Egyptians represented the god Anubis as a black jackal (a wild dog?) crouching "on his belly," or as a man with a jackal's or dog's head. Anubis is the Greek form of his Egyptian name, Anpu; the meaning of the latter is uncertain. The cult of Anubis originated in Middle Egypt, in the seventeenth province (nome), where his worship was centered. The province's town of Hardai, which had a dog cemetery in its environs, was called Kunopolis (Cynopolis) by the Greeks. But the cult was spread all over the country.

Anubis is one of the oldest funerary deities. Originally a destroyer of corpses, he was reshaped by theologians as the embalmer of gods and men. To Anubis was entrusted the mummification of Osiris (the ruler of the dead) and his followers, and the guardianship of their burials. Later Egyptian texts referred to Anubis as the son...