The jackal-headed Egyptian god associated with mummification was Anubis.
Anubis was a funerary deity who protected graves, guided the dead, and presided over the embalming process. Egyptian artists commonly portrayed him as a black canine or as a human figure with a jackal’s head. His dark color symbolized both the appearance of treated corpses and the fertile black soil of the Nile, linking death with the possibility of rebirth.
In the Osiris myth, Anubis helped Isis embalm Osiris after Set murdered and dismembered him. This story reinforced Anubis’s role as the patron and protector of embalmers. He also appears in scenes of the Weighing of the Heart, helping conduct the deceased before judgment in the afterlife.
Anubis is sometimes called a “jackal god,” although the precise animal inspiration may have included other wild canids found around Egyptian cemeteries. He is also easy to confuse with Horus, whose animal head is a falcon, or Thoth, who is commonly shown with an ibis head. Osiris later became more prominent as ruler of the dead, but Anubis retained his strong connection with burial and mummification.