He is the earliest Egyptian deity depicted on tomb walls and invoked for protection of the dead and is usually shown tending to the corpse of the king, presiding over mummification rituals and funerals, or standing with Osiris, Thoth, or other gods at the Weighing of the Heart of the Soul in the Hall of Truth in the afterlife.ДЄ popular image of Anubis is the standing or kneeling man with the jackal's head holding the golden scales on which the heart of the soul was weighed against the white feather of truth. In earlier times, Anubis was considered the son of Ra and Hesat (associated with Hathor), but after his assimilation into the Osiris myth he was held to be the son of Osiris and his sister-in- law Nephthys. In this role, he was associated with eternal justice and maintained this association later, even after he was replaced by Osiris who was then given the honorary title 'First of the Westerners'. He was known as 'First of the Westerners' prior to the rise of Osiris in the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) which meant he was king of the dead (as 'westerners' was the Egyptian term for departed souls in the afterlife which lay westward, in the direction of sunset). The powerful black canine, then, was the protector of the dead who made sure they received their due rights in burial and stood by them in the life after death to assist their resurrection. Black symbolized the decay of the body as well as the fertile soil of the Nile River Valley which represented regeneration and life.

The color black was chosen for its symbolism, not because Egyptian dogs or jackals were black. He is depicted as a black canine, a jackal-dog hybrid with pointed ears, or as a muscular man with the head of a jackal.

Jackal definition