Anubis and mummification in ancient Egypt are so important and so old! The ancient Egyptians did, in fact, mummify their bodies!! Everyone thinks they understand mummification, but have you ever considered why ancient Egyptians mummified themselves? What did they think about life after death? And why was Anubis (the jackal) regarded as the embalming deity by the ancient Egyptians?
Ancient Egypt was the very first human civilization, with a culture that dates back over 7,000 years.
The civilization began in the year 3100 BC when the king of the southern half of Egypt, “King Menes,” unified the two states of Egypt (Upper and Lower).
He was the first king of Egypt, and he is known as “the unifier of the two lands”. He developed the country’s organizational structure and was in charge of resolving some of the world’s oldest political and diplomatic disputes. However, religious structures existed in Egypt long before the pharaoh, or, more accurately, far before ancient Egypt’s civilization.
Before the unification, the ancient Egyptians worshipped several gods. Horus, the falcon deity of light and the sky, was one of the earliest gods. He is shown in scenes honoring the king’s triumph over the people of the north and unifying the two territories of Egypt – north and south – on Narmers’ palette, which is on display in the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities.
Let’s first get a brief idea about the ancient Egyptian beliefs
Egypt is everlasting because of its past, which is transmitted via stories. The Egyptians believed that the very first deity, Atum, created himself.
Then he made the other gods, beginning with Shu (air) and (moisture) (Tefnu). The deity of the soil (Geb) and the goddess of the sky (Nut) were created when air and moisture were mingled together. The heavens and the ground created four gods: Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nephthys.
The Holy Nine gods, on the one hand, are extremely important since they are the principal and oldest gods. The sun god, on the other hand, was the preeminent divinity of ancient Egypt throughout its existence. He goes by several other names, including Ra, Amun, Amun Ra, and Aton (at the time of King Akhnaton).
There was a sacred triad (a family of gods) for every significant city in ancient Egypt, consisting of a father, mother, and son or daughter. The deity Ptah, his wife Sekhmet, and their son Nefertum, for example, were the holy trio in Memphis’ old, first capital city, while the god Amun, his wife Mut, and their son Khonso were the holy triad in Luxor.
There were around 700 gods in ancient Egypt in all. Some of them were nice and some of them were bad. It’s fascinating to note how the ancient Egyptians handled these inconsistencies with acceptance, serenity, and a sense of calm.
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The ancient Egyptians developed mummification to prepare the deceased for the afterlife. They believed a person’s spirit needed its physical body to live on in the next world. By preserving the body, they ensured the soul could recognize and return to it. They also stocked the tomb with everyday objects, food, and other necessities to sustain the person’s spirit in the afterlife.
Ancient Egyptians’ belief in an afterlife came from a practice they started in the prehistoric period. To avoid the smell of rotting corpses, they buried their dead far from their homes in the desert’s hot, dry sand. The sun’s intense heat naturally dried the bodies, which unintentionally preserved them. When people later exhumed the bodies, they found them in a lifelike state. This discovery led them to believe in a continued existence after death. They began to see the Western Desert as the immortal land of the afterlife, and this early burial tradition became a religious law.
The ancient Egyptians believed a jackal first taught them mummification. For this reason, they associated the Jackal Anubis with the embalming process. Anubis was the god of embalming and the underworld. He protected the dead and guided souls through their journey to the afterlife. Priests who performed mummification rituals wore masks of Anubis to symbolize his presence and divine role in the process.
Once, they were transporting a deceased person to the desert to be buried when they came upon a ready-made hole, which, as previously said, made it easier for them to bury a body swiftly. However, when they began to prepare the hole, they discovered another body inside, which was in remarkably good shape!
The thought came, “Why is this body in such wonderful shape? Furthermore, “HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?”. They decided to wait and see what would happen, so they stuffed the recently deceased body into the hole and stood guard at the burial.
Nothing happened for a few days, and nothing changed. “We’ll keep an eye on it,” they said. They noticed several animals assaulting the grave and digging in the hole in search of food after about a week. These carnivorous creatures were a gang of jackals who ate the dead and then ran away from the graveyard.
The ancient humans had the foresight to wait until the animals had completed their delectable feast before returning to the grave to examine what was left of the body. The jackal Anubis ate only the inner organs, the viscera, and drained the blood from the body, rather than the complete flesh.
For several days, the sun’s tremendous energy and burning heat exposed the body as it lay in the desert. This process naturally dried the body and started mummification. An animal first performed this process before humans learned about it. The ancient Egyptians saw this animal—a jackal—as a messenger. They believed the jackal Anubis taught them the mummification procedure, although they didn’t know the reason behind it at first.
The explanation was simple: the jackal came to inform them they needed to mummify their bodies to prepare for a new existence. Mummification led them to believe in the afterlife, not the other way around.
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Anubis became known as the deity of mummification from this point on. They declared him a deity at the time and offered him sacrifices for him to stop digging graves. Because of him, they learned how to mummify, and the jackal (Anubis) ironically became the guardian of the tombs.
If you want to learn more about mummification and the equipment used to mummify bodies in ancient Egypt, the mummification museum in Luxor has all the information, tools, and mummies you need. Or you may take one of our Egypt tour packages to enjoy and listen to an intriguing narrative about ancient Egyptian mummies and discoveries as told by an expert tour guide.
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