CHAP. XIII. ANUBIS HAD NOT A DOg's HEAD. 441 



under the form of the entire animal. And lest 

 sce])ticism and the force of long received opinion 

 should still retain a doubt, or suppose this jackal 

 to be intended for a peculiar species of dog, it may 

 not be irrelevant to remark, that the same jackal 

 is introduced at Beni Hassan with the wolf and 

 otlier wild animals of Egypt, and that the dogs are 

 never figured in the paintings of a form which 

 could justify a similar conclusion. 



According to the explanation given by Plutarch* 

 of the history of Osiris from the phaenomena of the 

 heavens, Anubis was supposed, in one of his cha- 

 racters, " to represent the horizontal circle, which 

 divides the invisible part of the world, called by 

 the Egyptians Nephthys, from the visible, w^hicli 

 they term Isis. In short, Anubis seems to be of 

 the same power and nature as the Grecian Hecate, 

 a Deity common both to the celestial and infernal 

 regions." This last, however, I have shown t to 

 apply to Isis rather than to Anubis. " Others," he 

 adds, " are of opinion, that by Anubis is meant 

 Time, which begets all things out of itself ; but this 

 is one of the secret doctrines known only to those 



who are initiated into his worship The 



universal reason, moreover, is called by them 

 Anubis t, and sometimes Hermanubis ; the first of 

 these names expressing the relation it has to the 

 superior, as the latter to the inferior, world." 



The office of Anubis was to superintend tlic 

 passage of the souls from this life to a future state, 



* Pint, dc Is. s. 44. f Vide siqirci, p. 3CQ. 



X Plut. de Is. s. 61. 



