Anubis — Embalmer & Guardian of the Dead
The jackal-headed god of the embalming table, who steadied the scales when your heart was weighed.
Also: Anubis · Inpu · Anpu · jackal god · god of embalming · lord of the sacred land · Imy-ut · Khentamentiu (early)
Egyptians revered Anubis (Egyptian Inpu) as the jackal-headed god who presided over the dead: master of embalming and mummification, guardian of the cemetery (the 'sacred land' of the desert necropolis), and guide of the deceased through the dangers of the afterlife. In the judgment scene he tends the scales while the heart is weighed, with Thoth recording. Anubis was Egypt's pre-eminent funerary god before Osiris rose to that role, and he never lost his place at the embalming table.
In short
Anubis (Inpu), the jackal- (or wild-dog-) headed god of embalming, the necropolis, and the guidance and guardianship of the dead — 'lord of the sacred land,' presiding over mummification and, with Thoth, over the weighing of the heart; an older funerary lord than Osiris.
Where it’s found
Pyramid Texts onward; embalming and funerary ritual; judgment scenes (Book of the Dead spell 125)
Read it in the Egyptian texts
The passages in our corpus where this idea is discussed — each opens in our reader with the Egyptian transliteration and the English translation side by side.
How the idea developed across Egypt
Attested as a funerary deity from the Early Dynastic Period / Old Kingdom — earlier prominent as lord of the dead than Osiris, who later assumed the role of ruler of the dead while Anubis retained embalming and necropolis guardianship; constant in funerary texts and art thereafter. Anubis, originally an independent older funerary god, seems later to have been assimilated into the Osirian family as the son of Osiris and Nephthys (a tradition fullest in the Greco-Roman period, e.g. Plutarch), apparently without displacing his older independent role.
Anubis is a deity (never a person). The animal is best described as a jackal/wild dog (the exact species is debated). He presided over the dead before Osiris's funerary prominence — note this priority without overstating it.