What did Anubis look like?
1A brief about God Anubis
What did Anubis look like? Imagine you took your last breath and the world didn’t go away, but it had been replaced, as the air extended still and the light faded, and standing at the border of it all was a presence with a jackal head and eyes that held the core of all time. He didn’t talk, as he was already leading you to where your soul would be dignified. This is how was the Pantheon mythology, and this is the god Anubis, who is one of the ancient gods in the ancient Egyptian mythology.
An appearance engraved into tomb walls long before Osiris rose as the lord of the afterlife. Anubis, the jackal-headed god, existed back then when the first rulers of ancient Egypt had their graves, when the desert breeze went through open tombs, and when the dividing line between the living and the dead was still being marked down.
Anubis controlled the underworld in those earliest days, overseeing the passage of souls and the holiness of the tomb. Even when the myths changed and the power went to Osiris, Anubis lasted as the undertaker, the protector, and the silent guide through the afterlife. To recognize Anubis, we need to spot the light to the time before Osiris controlled the afterlife, before the great pyramids had been built as tombs, as in these early dynasties, death was raw, unregulated, and sanctified. Bodies were usually buried in the desert lands; the shallow tombs revealed the elements to the hunters that went after. The jackal was feared, as it haunted the edges of burial grounds, drawn by the aroma of decomposition. But rather than being rejected, it was transformed, as people looked at the creature that powered their tombs and saw something ancient, protective, and powerful.
What did Anubis look like?
He is usually presented as a jackal or a dog, or as a human with the head of a jackal. Anubis is often known and appears with fur in black, a symbol of decay and the productive Nile soil. He is also rarely depicted holding a crook and flail, symbols of power.
