Name

"Anubis" is a Greek rendering of this god's Egyptian name Before the Greeks arrived in Egypt, around the 7th century BC, the god was known as Anpu or Inpu. The root of the name in ancient Egyptian language means "a royal child." Inpu
has a root to "inp," which means "to decay." The god was also known as
"First of the Westerners," "Lord of the Sacred Land," "He Who is Upon
his Sacred Mountain," "Ruler of the Nine Bows," "The Dog who Swallows
Millions," "Master of Secrets," "He Who is in the Place of Embalming,"
and "Foremost of the Divine Booth."
The positions that he had were also reflected in the titles he held
such as "He Who Is upon His Mountain," "Lord of the Sacred Land,"
"Foremost of the Westerners," and "He Who Is in the Place of Embalming."
In the Old Kingdom (c. 2686 BC – c. 2181 BC), the standard way of writing his name in hieroglyphs was composed of the sound signs inpw followed by a jacka over a ḥtp sign.

Protector of tombs

In contrast to real wolves, Anubis was a protector of graves and cemeteries. Several epithets attached to his name in Egyptian texts and inscriptions referred to that role. Khenty-imentiu, which means "foremost of the westerners" and was also the name of a different canine funerary god, alluded to his protecting function because the dead were usually buried on the west bank of the Nile. He took other names in connection with his funerary role, such as tpy-ḏw.f "He who is upon his mountain" (i.e. keeping guard over tombs from above) and nb-t3-ḏsr "Lord of the sacred land", which designates him as a god of the desert necropolis.


The Jumilhac papyrus
recounts another tale where Anubis protected the body of Osiris from
Set. Set attempted to attack the body of Osiris by transforming himself
into a leopard. Anubis stopped and subdued Set, however, and he branded Set's skin with a hot iron rod. Anubis then flayed Set and wore his skin as a warning against evil-doers who would desecrate the tombs of the dead.
Priests who attended to the dead wore leopard skin in order to
commemorate Anubis' victory over Set. The legend of Anubis branding the
hide of Set in leopard form was used to explain how the leopard got its spots.


Most ancient tombs had prayers to Anubis carved on them.

Embalmer

As jmy-wt "He who is in the place of embalming", Anubis was associated with mummification. He was also called ḫnty zḥ-nṯr
"He who presides over the god's booth", in which "booth" could refer
either to the place where embalming was carried out or the pharaoh's
burial chamber.


In the Osiris myth, Anubis helped Isis to embalm Osiris
Indeed, when the Osiris myth emerged, it was said that after Osiris had
been killed by Set, Osiris's organs were given to Anubis as a gift.
With this connection, Anubis became the patron god of embalmers; during
the rites of mummification, illustrations from the Book of the Dead often show a wolf-mask-wearing priest supporting the upright mummy.

Guide of Souls

By the late pharaonic era (664–332 BC), Anubis was often depicted as guiding individuals across the threshold from the world of the living to the afterlife. Though a similar role was sometimes performed by the cow-headed Hathor, Anubis was more commonly chosen to fulfill that function. Greek writers from the Roman period of Egyptian history designated that role as that of "psychopomp", a Greek term meaning "guide of souls" that they used to refer to their own god Hermes, who also played that role in Greek religion. Funerary art from that period represents Anubis guiding either men or women dressed in Greek clothes into the presence of Osiris, who by then had long replaced Anubis as ruler of the underworld.

Weighing of the heart

One of the roles of Anubis was as the "Guardian of the Scales. The critical scene depicting the weighing of the heart, in the Book of the Dead, shows Anubis performing a measurement that determined whether the person was worthy of entering the realm of the dead (the underworld, known as Duat). By weighing the heart of a deceased person against Ma'at
(or "truth"), who was often represented as an ostrich feather, Anubis
dictated the fate of souls. Souls heavier than a feather would be
devoured by Ammit, and souls lighter than a feather would ascend to a heavenly existence.