Anubis, the jackal-headed god, oversaw the embalming process. He also bore the epithet "lord of the hallowed ground," meaning protector of the necropolis. Anubis had a significant role in the judgment of the dead when he supervised the weighing of the heart for Osiris. Anubis, the jackal-headed god, oversaw the embalming process. He also bore the epithet "lord of the hallowed ground," meaning protector of the necropolis. Anubis had a significant role in the judgment of the dead when he supervised the weighing of the heart for Osiris.

The earliest jackal-form amulet, made of bone, was found in a predynastic Naqqada II burial and shows the animal in the “couching” position. By the sixth dynasty, jackal-headed human walking figures made their first appearance.
Jackal-form Anubis as an amulet would have been worn only by the dead. The jackal was a dangerous force to be propitiated, since its chief activity was prowling around desert cemeteries, seeking bones to crunch or skulking around embalmers’ storage rooms in the hope of carrying off a well-salted limb from an unsupervised corpse as it lay drying out in natron. According to ancient Egyptian beliefs, the destruction of the body prevented resurrection. Anubis was therefore deified as god of embalming, seeking in this way the protection of the very object he would by nature attack.The earliest jackal-form amulet, made of bone, was found in a predynastic Naqqada II burial and shows the animal in the “couching” position. By the sixth dynasty, jackal-headed human walking figures made their first appearance.
Jackal-form Anubis as an amulet would have been worn only by the dead. The jackal was a dangerous force to be propitiated, since its chief activity was prowling around desert cemeteries, seeking bones to crunch or skulking around embalmers’ storage rooms in the hope of carrying off a well-salted limb from an unsupervised corpse as it lay drying out in natron. According to ancient Egyptian beliefs, the destruction of the body prevented resurrection. Anubis was therefore deified as god of embalming, seeking in this way the protection of the very object he would by nature attack.