till
further emphasized, and in the annals and votive inscriptions as well as
in the incantations and hymns, he is rarely introduced as an active
force to whom a personal appeal can be made. His name becomes little
more than a synonym for the heavens in general and even his title as
king or father of the gods has little of the personal element in it. A
consort Antum (or as some scholars prefer to read, Anatum) is assigned
to him, on the theory that every deity must have a female associate, but
Antum is a purely artificial product--a lifeless symbol playing even
less of a part in what may be called the active pantheon than Anu.

For works of reference see BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION.
(M. Ja.)

ANUBIS (in Egyptian _Anup_, written _Inpw_ in hieroglyphs), the name of
one of the most important of the Egyptian gods. There were two types of
canine divinities in Egypt, their leading representatives being
respectively Anubis and Ophois (Wp-w'-wt, "opener of the ways"): the
former type is symbolized by the recumbent animal [Hieroglyph], the
other by a similar animal (in a stiff standing attitude), carried as an
emblem on a standard [Hieroglyph] in war or in religious processions.
The former comprised two beneficent gods of the necropolis; the latter
also were beneficent, but warlike, divinities. They thus corresponded,
at any rate in some measure, respectively to the fiercer and milder
aspects of the dog-tribe. In late days the Greeks report that [Greek:
kunes] (dogs) were the sacred animals of Anubis while those of Ophois
were [Greek: lykoi] (wolves). The above figure [Hieroglyph] is coloured
black as befits a funerary and nocturnal animal: it is more attenuated
than even a greyhound, but it has the bushy tail of the fox or the
jackal. Probably these were the original genii of the necropolis, and in
fact the same lean animal figured _passant_ [Hieroglyph] is s'b "jackal"
or "fox." The domestic dog would be brought into the sacred circle
through the increased veneration for animals, and the more pronounced
view in later times of Anubis as servant, messenger and custodian of the
gods.

Anubis was the principal god in the capitals of the XVIIth and XVIIIth
nomes of Upper Egypt, and secondary god in the XIIIth and probably in
the XIIth nome; but his cult was universal. To begin with, he was the
god of the dead, of the cemetery, of all supplies for the dead, and
therefore of embalming when that became customary