7 Hidden Facts About Anubis Egyptian God Most People Don’t Know

Anubis is one of the most recognizable figures in ancient Egyptian mythology, yet also one of the most misunderstood. Often reduced to the role of a simple god of death, his true significance extends far beyond the familiar image of a jackal-headed figure beside the scales of judgment.

Across thousands of years, Anubis held shifting but essential roles within Egyptian religion, guarding graves, overseeing mummification, guiding souls, and enforcing sacred boundaries between the living and the dead. His authority predates many later deities, and his presence endured because the functions he governed were indispensable to beliefs about the afterlife.

This article explores lesser-known facts about Anubis, uncovering how his roles evolved, why his symbolism mattered, and how later cultures reshaped his image. By looking beyond the surface, we gain a clearer understanding of why Anubis remained one of the most enduring and influential gods in ancient Egyptian belief.

Anubis was one of the most important gods in ancient Egyptian religion, holding a level of authority that predates many later, more famous deities.

Anubis’s importance comes from timing, function, and necessity.

In the earliest periods of ancient Egypt, religion was not centered on grand myths of resurrection or divine kingship. It was focused on a single, urgent question: what happens to the body after death? Survival in the afterlife depended entirely on proper burial, preservation, and ritual accuracy. Anubis governed all three.

Unlike gods who ruled abstract concepts, Anubis controlled practical survival beyond death. Without his protection, the body could decay, the tomb could be violated, and the soul could lose its identity, a fate worse than death in Egyptian belief. This made Anubis essential not just spiritually, but socially and ritually.

His authority was so foundational that when the Osirian cult later rose to prominence, Anubis was not removed. Instead, he was integrated. He became the embalmer of Osiris, the guide of souls, and the overseer of funerary rites, roles too critical to eliminate. This integration reflects continuity, not decline.

In other words, Anubis was important because the afterlife could not function without him. Judgment, resurrection, and eternal life all depended on the preparatory work he oversaw. Long before mythology became symbolic and elaborate, Anubis was already indispensable.

Anubis’s role was not fixed; it evolved over the long history of ancient Egypt in response to religious, political, and cultural shifts.

Ancient Egyptian religion was not static. It evolved over thousands of years, and Anubis evolved alongside it, adapting to shifting religious priorities without losing his core significance.

In the earliest periods of Egyptian history, Anubis functioned as the primary funerary deity. He oversaw burial rites, protected graves from physical and spiritual threats, and governed the crucial transition between life and death. At this stage, his authority centered on safeguarding the body and ensuring the deceased could properly enter the afterlife.

As religious focus gradually shifted toward Osiris and the theology of royal resurrection, Anubis’s position was redefined rather than erased. He became closely associated with Osiris, taking on the role of his embalmer and linking his own authority directly to the myth of divine resurrection. At the same time, Anubis emerged as the guardian of mummification rituals, overseeing the technical and sacred processes required to preserve the body for eternity.

In later funerary belief, Anubis also served as the guide of souls, leading the deceased safely to the hall of judgment, and as the overseer of the weighing of the heart, ensuring that the ritual of judgment was conducted according to cosmic order. These roles were more specialized than his earlier sovereignty over death, but they remained indispensable to the functioning of the afterlife.

The evolution of Anubis reflects a broader Egyptian tendency to layer beliefs rather than replace them. New religious ideas were added without discarding older ones, allowing Anubis to persist across centuries of change. This adaptability explains his remarkable longevity: while gods who lost relevance faded from worship, Anubis endured because his functions remained essential at every stage of Egyptian belief about death and the afterlife.

Anubis was one of the earliest and most influential gods in ancient Egyptian religion, holding funerary authority that predates many later, more widely known deities.

Anubis is traditionally depicted in black, a color that held deep symbolic significance in ancient Egyptian thought. Contrary to modern associations with death, decay, or evil, black represented fertility, regeneration, and life after death. It was the color of the rich, dark silt left behind by the Nile’s annual floods, a substance that made agriculture and renewal possible.

By depicting Anubis in black, the Egyptians emphasized his role not as a god of destruction, but as a force of preservation and rebirth. The color linked him directly to the promise of regeneration, underscoring his responsibility for mummification and the continuation of existence beyond physical death. In this way, Anubis embodied the idea that death was not an end, but a necessary stage in an ongoing cycle of renewal.

Priests who performed the embalming of the dead wore jackal masks to ritually embody Anubis during the mummification process.

Mummification in ancient Egypt was not considered a purely physical or technical procedure, but a sacred rite that required divine supervision. By wearing jackal masks, embalmers symbolically assumed the presence of Anubis, allowing the god to act through them as they prepared the body for the afterlife. This ritual identification reinforced Anubis’s role as the protector of the dead and the divine authority behind embalming practices.

The use of masks also reflects the Egyptian belief that correct ritual performance was essential for eternal survival. Preservation of the body was not simply about preventing decay; it was about maintaining cosmic order and ensuring the deceased could be recognized in the afterlife. Through this symbolic embodiment, priests transformed human labor into a divinely guided act.

In Greco-Egyptian tradition, Anubis was syncretized with the Greek god Hermes, resulting in the hybrid deity known as Hermanubis.

When Greek culture encountered Egyptian religion, particularly during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, similarities between gods were used to bridge belief systems. Anubis and Hermes were both understood as psychopomps, guides who escorted souls between worlds. This shared function led to their fusion into a single figure, Hermanubis.

In this blended form, Hermanubis retained Anubis’s association with the dead while adopting aspects of Hermes’s role as a messenger and guide. However, this syncretism also simplified Anubis’s original character. His deep connection to embalming, ritual knowledge, and tomb protection was largely overshadowed by the more generalized role of soul-guide. The creation of Hermanubis reflects how cross-cultural interpretation could preserve a god’s visibility while subtly altering his original significance.

In Egyptian mythology, Anubis is associated with the goddess Anput as his consort, while his daughter is the lesser-known deity Kebechet.

Anput is a relatively obscure goddess whose name is the feminine form of Anubis’s own, suggesting a complementary or paired role rather than an independent cult with extensive mythology. She appears primarily in funerary contexts, reinforcing Anubis’s domain over death and burial rites rather than expanding it.

Kebechet, the daughter of Anubis, played a more distinct role in funerary belief. She was associated with purification, particularly the cleansing of the deceased through sacred waters. In some traditions, she was believed to refresh and comfort the dead during their journey through the afterlife, extending Anubis’s protective influence beyond mummification and into spiritual renewal.

This familial structure emphasizes that Anubis’s authority was not solitary. His role within a divine family highlights how Egyptian religion organized funerary functions into interconnected forces (protection, preservation, and purification) working together to secure eternal life.

Anubis was believed to possess the power to curse those who disturbed the dead or violated burial sites.

In ancient Egyptian belief, the protection of tombs was both a physical and a spiritual concern. Anubis, as guardian of the dead and overseer of burial rites, was frequently invoked in funerary texts and tomb inscriptions as a divine enforcer against desecration. These invocations warned that anyone who disturbed a grave would face supernatural punishment under Anubis’s authority.

Such curses were not expressions of cruelty, but of cosmic justice. Tomb violation threatened not only the deceased but the balance of order itself. By attributing punitive power to Anubis, Egyptians reinforced the sacred boundary between the living and the dead, using fear as a protective mechanism to preserve ritual order and eternal rest.

Author: The Museum of Time, Asal Mirzaei 

14 January 2026, latest update