Dictionary Of God And Godedesses

22 Anu (2)the older Sumerian god AN. Anu features stronglyin the akitu festival in Babylon, Uruk and othercities until the Hellenic period and possibly aslate as 200 BC. Some of his later pre-eminencemay be attributable to identification with theGreek god of heaven, ZEUS, and with OURANOS.Anu (2)Chthonic mother goddess. Celtic (Irish). Closelyassociated with fertility and the primordialmother of the TUATHA DE DANANN. Twin hillsnear Killarney in Munster are called “The Paps ofAnu.” Also Ana.ANUBIS [Greek]ORIGIN Egyptian. Mortuary god.KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP circa 2700 BC (butextending from pre-Dynastic times) until endof Egyptian history circa AD 400.SYNONYMS Imy-ut (he who is in the mortuary);Khenty-imentiu (chief of the westerners);Khenty-seh-netjer (chief of the gods’ pavilion);Neb-ta-djeser (lord of the sacred land); Tepydju-ef(he who is upon the mountain).CENTER(S) OF CULT the necropolis at Memphisand elsewhere.ART REFERENCES tomb effigies, wall paintings,statuettes etc.LITERARY SOURCES Pyramid Texts; funerary textsand hymns.The parentage of Anubis is confused but the mostpopular notion seems to place him as a son of REand of NEPHTHYS or ISIS. The god of mortuaries,Anubis takes the form of a black dog or jackalusually in a lying down or crouching position,ears pricked and long tail hanging. He wears acollar with magical connotations. Less often heappears in human form with a canine head. Theimagery of a dog probably originated from observationof bodies being scavenged from shallowgraves and the desire to protect them from sucha fate by manifesting Anubis as a dog himself.The Book of the Dead has him standing by thescales in which the heart is weighed in the Hall ofthe Two Truths, and he is sometimes known asthe “claimer of hearts.” Anubis was perceived tosuperintend the embalming of kings and courtiersin the mortuary and the subsequent binding withlinen bandages. His coat color is thought to beblack because of the color of the corpse after theembalming process, which darkened it, and theuse of black tar to seal the bindings. His symbolin the context of mortuary god is an animal skin,headless, dripping blood and tied to a pole. Atthe subsequent funeral ceremony of the Openingof the Mouth the priest wore a jackal headdress.The main cemetery sites are on the west bank ofthe Nile where the sun sets, hence one epithet forAnubis—“chief of the westerners”; another, “hewho is upon the mountain,” conjures an image ofAnubis watching over the cemeteries from thehigh escarpments.In the Greco-Roman period he became a cosmicdeity of earth and sky somewhat removedfrom his older function.Anukis [Greek]Birth goddess. Egyptian (Upper). Minor deitywith cult centers in lower Nubia and at Elephantine.She is variously the daughter of RE, and ofKHNUM and SATIS. Anukis lives in the cataracts ofthe Lower Nile. Her portrait appears in the Templeof Rameses II at Beit-et-Wali where she sucklesthe pharaoh, suggesting that she is connectedwith birth and midwifery, but she also demonstratesa malignant aspect as a strangler (seeHATHOR). Her sacred animal is the gazelle.Depicted anthropomorphically wearing a turban(modius) with ostrich feathers. Also Anuket(Egyptian).