The jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife is Anubis.
Anubis was one of ancient Egypt’s principal funerary deities. He protected graves, oversaw embalming, and guided the dead into the underworld. Egyptian art often presents him as a black canine or as a human figure with a jackal’s head, reflecting the association between wild canids and cemeteries on the edge of the desert.
His black color had symbolic meaning rather than simply depicting an animal’s fur. It evoked the fertile Nile mud, regeneration, and the darkened appearance of a body treated during embalming. Anubis was also connected with the “Weighing of the Heart,” in which a deceased person’s heart was judged against the feather of Ma’at.
A common mix-up is to call Anubis the permanent ruler of the underworld. In earlier periods he held a leading role among the dead, but Osiris later became the dominant lord of the underworld. Anubis remained the embalmer, tomb protector, and guide of souls.