Which jackal-headed god oversaw mummification and guided souls to the afterlife? Anubis. In ancient Egyptian religion, Anubis was the god of funerary rites, embalming, grave protection, and guidance into the realm of the dead.
Anubis was closely associated with mummification. Egyptian religious tradition made him the divine embalmer of Osiris, and priests performing funerary rites sometimes wore masks representing the god. He also protected cemeteries, an association likely strengthened by jackals scavenging around desert-edge burial grounds.
Anubis did not remain the chief ruler of the underworld in every period. During the Middle Kingdom, Osiris increasingly became lord of the dead, while Anubis retained important duties as protector, embalmer, and guide. In scenes of the Weighing of the Heart, he supervises the scales that measure the deceased person's heart against the feather of Ma'at.
His black coloring was symbolic rather than a realistic depiction of a jackal. It evoked both the darkened body after embalming and the fertile Nile mud, linking death with regeneration. Anubis is sometimes confused with Wepwawet, another canine-form deity associated with opening paths.