Cult of Gods

Anubis

Also: Inpu

Egyptian tradition. See the whole pantheon.

Domains
embalming, guide of the dead
Symbols and attributes
Jackal
Papyrus of Ani, British Museum (New Kingdom), a Book of the Dead.
Papyrus of Ani, British Museum (New Kingdom), a Book of the Dead.

Key myth

Anubis oversaw embalming and led souls to judgment. His parentage varies across texts: Ra, Nephthys, Osiris, Bastet and Hesat all appear.

Where sources differ or caution applies. No single Egyptian tradition gives his parents; this is among the clearest cases of conflict between sources.

Primary sources

  • Pyramid Texts
  • Book of the Dead, Spell 125

All sources for the Egyptian pantheon

Place in the family graph

Choose a deity to see where it comes from. Dashed lines are links the sources describe that are not parent and child.

NunAtumRaAmunShuTefnutMaatHathorSekhmetPtahGebNutAnubisThothSobekOsirisIsisSethNephthysHorus

More traditions

Odin rides to Hel, W. G. Collingwood, after the Poetic Edda.NorseA chaos monster and a sun god, drawn by L. Gruner for A. H. Layard's Monuments of Nineveh.MesopotamianVishvarupa Vishnu, Kashmir or Himachal, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art collection.HinduFolio 309r of the Book of Kells (Trinity College Dublin), c. 800.Celtic (Irish)

Elsewhere in the world

Deities in other traditions who share a theme with Anubis: death and the underworld. This is overlap in one area only.

Norse

Odin

wisdom, poetry, war

Norse

Baldr

light, beauty, mercy

Norse

Hel

the dead who die of sickness or age

Norse

Freyja

love, desire, magic (seiðr)

Norse

Rán

drowning, the sea's net

Mesopotamian

Nergal

plague, war, the underworld

Compare across cultures