Dear Friends of ancient mythology! Egypt, Alexandria, Claudius II Gothicus, AD 268-270 AE - Potin tetradrachm, 20.5mm, 10.97g struck regnal year 2 (AD 269/70) Obv.: AVT K KΛA - VΔIOC CEB Bust, draped, laureate, r. Rev.: Youthful bust of Hermanubis r., drapery over l. shoulder, wearing kalathos, lotos blossom above forehead; before combination of kerykeion and palmbranch behind LB (year 2) Ref.: Milne 4239; Curtis 1701; Köln 3037 VF+, matt darkbrown patina About 5000 BC several tribes settled down in the valley of the river Nile: Libyans, Semites from Asia and Nubians. This mixture of people settled in two different seperated areas, the valley south of Assiat, later known as Upper-Egypt, and in the area of Fayum in Lower-Egypt. Different to the Sumerians the Egypts built no big cities in the first time. Around 3400 BC Menes unified both reigns and then began to built cities. This was Egypt's heyday, but ended at the end of the 12th century BC. The origin of the god Anubis is an unsolved riddle until yet. He is connected to the ritual of embalming and depicted as jackal or greyhound. Anubis was the patron of mummification. Referring to later ideas he was the brother of Osiris, or created secretly by Osiris and Nephthys, then marooned by his parents and raised by Isis. Anubis showed the deads their way to afterlife. Therefore he was equated by the Greeks with Hermes and named Hermanubis. Anubis and especially Hermanubis were seen in the late times as gods of mysteries, that means only a small circle of adepts (the so-called mysts) were informed. Even today you find Hermanubis on large quantities of esoteric websites. Our knowledge is based mainly on Plutarch and Apuleius. Anubis (Greek), Anpu (Egyptian), the Egyptian jackal-headed deity, was the Lord of the Silent Land of the West (the underworld). To him with Thoth was entrusted the psychopompic leading of the dead. In the judgement after death, Anubis tests the balance in the scene of the weighing of the heart. His offices were likewise those of the embalmer, mystically speaking. Originally the god of the underworld, he was later replaced by Osiris. In Heliopolis during the later dynasties he was identified with Horus, for he was often regarded as the son of Osiris and Isis - more often of Osiris and Nephthys (Neth). Plutarch writes: "By Anubis they understand the horizontal circle, which divides the invisuble part of the world, which they call Nephthys, from the visible, to which they give the name of Isis; and as this circle equally touches upon the confines of both light and darkness, it may be looked upon as common to them both . . . Others again are of opinion that by Anubus is meant Time . . . " (On Isis and Osiris, sec. 44). The mysteries of Osiris and Isis were revived in Rome, and Apuleius (2nd century) in his "The Golden Ass" tells of the Procession of Isis, in which the dual aspect of Anubis was portrayed: "that messenger between heaven and helll displaying alternately a face black as night, and golden as the day; in his left the caduceus, in his right waving aloft the green palm branch" (Gods of the Egyptians, Budge 2:264-5). In most of his attributes, Anubis is a lunar power, Plutarch connecting him with the Grecian Hecate, one of the names for the moon; and this is further emphasized by his being a guide of the dead. So he was identified by the Greeks with Hermes as psychopompos. I have added the pic of the statue of Anubis from the Musei Vaticani, white marble, probably 1st-2nd century. Best regards
