WOODEN STATUET OF ANUBI Late Period, XXV-XXVI Dynasty 747-525 BC Statuette of Anubis in carved wood, plastered and painted in black. The god is depicted in his jackal hypostasis, crouched with his front legs outstretched and his tail folded on his right side; it has a black coat, the head is erect and the muzzle pointed, the large tense and pointed ears, the almond-colored eyes in white with pupil in black, the arched eyebrows ocher-colored, the inside of the ears colored red with indication of the hair, around the neck it has a red colored ribbon. These figures of lying jackal were normally placed, alone or in pairs, on the covers of the sarcophagi (with a rectangular case and a barrel vault cover and four small pillars at the corners) typical of the XXV dynasty. The divinity depicted is Upuaut, the "street opener", a god of exclusively funerary sphere who was later associated with Anubis. Its function was to guarantee the deceased a safe passage to the afterlife. The underworld, so important for the Egyptians, was placed under the protection of Anubis, the embalmer god, one of the oldest gods in the Egyptian pantheon, its center of worship was Heliopolis. He is the god of mummification and the dead. He accompanies the deceased on the journey to the afterlife (in many scenes we see Anubis lovingly taking the deceased's hand). Anubis supervises the embalming, officiates the ritual of opening the mouth, protects and defends the deceased in his path. His sacred animal was the wandering dog or jackal of the Nile valley which, unlike the god, depicted as a black dog or a black-headed man, is rarely black. The black color was not for the ancients a symbol of mourning, on the contrary it was the specific color used for mummification, therefore a symbol of rebirth. The most common denominations of Anubis are "the one who presides over the embalming", "the one who lives on the mountain" "lord of the Necropolis" and the one who owns the ut (Im-Ut, they are called Ut the bandages of the mummies). to the Archaeological Superintendence of Bologna. Code RPS 174/2003 WOODEN FIGURE OF ANUBI Late Period, 600-30 BC A wooden figure of the god Anubi represented as a recumbent jackal, the tail wrapped around the body. Anubis is an incredibly ancient god, and was the original god of the dead before Osiris "took over" the position. After that point, Anubis was changed to be one of the many sons of Osiris and the psycho pomp (conductor of souls) of the underworld. His totem of the jackal is probably due to the fact that jackals would hunt at the edges of the desert, near the necropolis and cemeteries throughout Egypt. 600-30 BC Height 18, length 26 cm