Anubis is the famous Greek name for the ancient Egyptian funerary god whose Egyptian name was Inpu or Anpu. Greek writers adapted Egyptian divine names into forms that became familiar in the Mediterranean world.
The Greek form Anubis is now standard in English-language discussions of Egyptian religion. He was usually shown with a black jackal or canine head and a human body. His black color symbolized both the fertile soil of the Nile and the transformed body of a mummy, rather than the ordinary color of a living jackal.
Anubis was connected with embalming, tomb protection, and the passage of the dead. In later Egyptian religion, many funerary responsibilities were shared or reinterpreted alongside those of Osiris. The name Hermanubis refers instead to a later Greco-Egyptian combination of Anubis and Hermes.