Anubis is an ancient Egyptian god who played an important role in their mythology and religion. He was known as the god of funerary rites, protector of graves, and the deity of cemeteries and embalming. Anubis was often depicted as a man with the head of a jackal or dog, and he was believed to have weighed the hearts of the deceased against the feather of Ma’at to determine their worthiness for the afterlife. He was also responsible for guiding them through the underworld and was closely associated with the god Osiris. Anubis was reputed to be the inventor of embalming, an art he first employed on the corpse of Osiris. In his later role as the “conductor of souls,” he was sometimes identified by the Greco-Roman world with the Greek Hermes in the composite deity Hermanubis. Anubis was a major part of the transition from life to death and back to life again, and his image can often be seen in art, literature, and film.