Anubis is the protector of the gates to the Underworld, Osiris replaced him as the god of the dead. He looks like a man with the head of aPharaoh Hound, called Tesem.
Anubis, as the god of death and the afterlife, was closely associated withmummification and burial rites. Egyptian jackals had an association with the dead, as well. They were often found digging up buried bodies and eating them, which may be why Anubis was depicted as part jackal. The priests who mummified thepharaohs wore costumes to make them appear like Tesem (Pharaoh hound).
The Egyptian people believed that Anubis helped decide the fate of the dead in the afterlife. The heart of the dead was weighed against the feather of truth (representing the goddessMa'at), to see if the deceased was worthy of entering the afterlife. If the person had lived an evil life, his or her heart would be heavy with evil, and he or she would be eaten byAmmit (the Devourer). If a person was kind and good, the heart would be light, he or she could continue on to the afterlife safe and sound to meet Osiris.[1]
Anubis, in theBook of the Dead. Is shown giving equality through research of weighing the human heart to a feather. Any honesty will make the feather heavier than the heart on the scale.
In later times, during thePtolemaic period, as their functions were similar, Anubis came to be identified as theGreek godHermes, becomingHermanubis.[2][3] The centre of thiscult was inuten-ha/Sa-ka/Cynopolis, a place whose Greek name simply means "city of dogs". In Book XI of "The Golden Ass" byApuleius, we find evidence that the worship of this god was maintained inRome at least up to the 2nd century. Indeed, it was revealed thatHermanubis also appeared in thealchemical andhermetical literature of theMiddle Ages and theRenaissance.
Although the Greeks andRomans typically scorned Egypt's animal-headed gods as bizarre and primitive (they mockingly called Anubis the "Barker"), Anubis was sometimes associated withSirius in heaven, andCerberus in the underworld.
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