Anubis’s Family Tree

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Family

• Nephthys(parent),Osiris(parent)— Consort

  Nephthys disguised herself as Isis and lay with Osiris, conceiving Anubis — a secret tryst betrayed only by a garland of clover left behind.

  ⚠ Plutarch (De Iside 14) gives this account; earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts variously name Anubis as son of Ra or Hesat, with the Osiris-Nephthys parentage likely a Late Period synthesis.

• Nephthys(parent),Set(parent)— Marriage

  Anubis is the son of Nephthys and Set in earlier Egyptian texts, placing the jackal god within the Ennead through his father's lineage.

  ⚠ The dominant later tradition, recorded by Plutarch, names Osiris as Anubis's father through Nephthys's deception. The Set-parentage appears in earlier texts before this narrative became standard.

• Isis(parent)— Adopted

  Isis found the infant Anubis after Nephthys abandoned him and raised him as her own son, forging a bond of fierce loyalty between adoptive mother and child.

• Kebechet(child)

  Kebechet is the daughter of Anubis, assisting her father in funerary rites by bringing cool, purifying water to refresh the dead.

Allied with

• Duamutef,Hapy,Imsety,Qebehsenuef

  Anubis oversees the embalming process while the Four Sons of Horus — Imsety, Hapy, Duamutef, and Qebehsenuef — guard the deceased's organs in their canopic jars.

• Wepwawet

  Wepwawet opens the way through the darkness ahead of the funeral procession, clearing the path so that Anubis may receive the body and perform the rites of embalming.

Guards

• Apis

  Anubis presided over the mummification of the Apis bull, with the sacred animal receiving the same seventy-day embalming ritual accorded to pharaohs under the jackal god's protection.

• Duat

  Anubis guards the Duat as Lord of the Sacred Land, protecting the dead on their journey through the underworld's perils.

• Osiris

  Anubis embalmed and wrapped the body of Osiris, becoming the first mummifier, and stands guard over his father's tomb as protector of the dead.

• Rostau

  Anubis presides over Rostau, the gateway to the underworld located near Giza, guarding the entrance through which souls pass to the afterlife.

Enemy of

• Set

  Anubis opposed Set during and after the murder of Osiris, defeating him in combat and branding him with a hot iron as punishment for the dismemberment of the dead god.

Equivalent to

• Hermes(Greek)

  During the Ptolemaic period, Anubis was syncretized with Hermes as Hermanubis, combining the Egyptian guide of the dead with the Greek psychopomp.

Associated with

• Ammit

  Anubis weighs the heart against the feather of Ma'at on the scales of judgment, and when the heart proves heavy with sin, Ammit lunges forward to devour it, erasing the soul from existence.

• Hall of Two Truths

  Anubis leads the deceased into the Hall of Two Truths and operates the great scales, placing the heart on one side and the feather of Ma'at on the other, his steady hands determining whether the soul is worthy of eternal life.

• Maat

  Anubis uses the feather of Ma'at as the counterweight in the weighing of the heart, measuring the deceased's virtue against the goddess's standard of truth and cosmic order.

• Nephthys

  Anubis and Nephthys worked together to gather, embalm, and wrap the dismembered body of Osiris, with Nephthys mourning while Anubis performed the sacred rites.

• Thoth

  In the Hall of Two Truths, Anubis steadies the great scales while Thoth stands beside him with palette and reed pen, recording whether the heart and the feather balance true.