The Function Of Anubis And Connection To Other Gods
In the original system of Egyptian mythology, Anubis was the god of the Underworld, the realm of death, and he was the fourth son of Ra. Ra was a major deity in Egyptian mythology, and the chief god of the city of Heliopolis, which literally meant, “City of the Sun.” Ra was the god of the sun essentially, but he commanded the sky, the earth, and the underworld. Because the kings of Egypt, pharaohs, were thought to be sons of the Egyptian god Ra, they were also worshipped as gods. However, Anubis was one of the original deities thought to be a son of Ra. Although, later in the system of Egyptian mythology Osiris was said to have fathered Anubis, his mother being the Egyptian goddess Nephthys.
Osiris is the Egyptian god of life, death, and primarily, fertility, as well as being one of the oldest Egyptian gods that there are even records of. The history of the goddess Nephthys is somewhat incomplete, only occasionally is she thought to be the mother of Anubis. Nephthys was the sister or completed form of the goddess Isis. She was known in various forms in texts and theologies under different names, but no definite history is determined, other than her parents being the primary earth deities, Nut and Geb. Anubis was sometimes depicted as having a wife, the goddess Anput. However, she was actually only the female extension of himself, her name was the same as his except with the added suffix of “t” which was descriptive of femininity in a name.
Anubis was also sometimes referred to in mythology as having another wife, the goddess of cold water, Neheb Kau, Nehebka, or Kebauet. However, she was also depicted in other areas of Egypt as his daughter. Aside from the wife/daughter Kebauet, Anubis had only one daughter, the goddess Kebechet. Kebechet was the chief female deity of the purification of bodily organs during the process of mummification, or embalming, before they are placed in their ceremonial jars and preserved with the body.
Anubis’ primary function was embalming the dead; or was supposedly the instructor of those doing the actual mummification. The embalming ceremony was performed by high priests and during which they wore the mask of the god Anubis; the head of dogs. Anubis is also said to be the embalmer of his father Osiris, making him the older brother of the god Horus. Horus was actually two gods; the Older and the Younger. Mainly, he represented the god of the sky, of kings. Once Anubis became the primary god of embalming, he also became the primary deity of the mysterious practices of the imuit fetish. The Imuit fetish is actually the representation of a figure during the funeral rites which Anubis presided over. There are currently not enough records to determine exactly what kind of deity Imuit was, but he is present in the oldest records of Egyptian mythology. The imuit fetish was represented as a stuffed and headless animal skin tied to a pole that had a lotus bud at the top, inserted in a stand. It is sometimes called inaccurately the Anubis fetish.