Ancient Egyptian deities purposes. Egyptian texts often refer to deities' true, underlying forms as "mysterious". The Egyptians' visual representations of their gods are therefore not literal. They symbolize specific aspects of each deity's character, functioning much like the ideograms in hieroglyphic writing. For this reason, the funerary god Anubis is commonly shown in Egyptian art as a dog or jackal, a creature whose scavenging habits threaten the preservation of buried mummies, in an effort to counter this threat and employ it for protection. His black coloring alludes to the color of mummified flesh and to the fertile black soil that Egyptians saw as
Anubis Shrine Anubis Shrine The Anubis Shrine was part of the grave goods of Tutankhamun (18th Dynasty, New Kingdom). The tomb was discovered almost intact on 4 November 1922 in the Valley of the Kings in west Thebes by Howard Carter. Today the object, with the find number 261, is an exhibit at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, with the inventory number JE 61444. The Anubis Shrine was found behind the unwalled entrance which leads from the grave chamber (J) into the so-called "Store Room" (Ja). The shrine, with a figure of Anubis on top, was facing towards the west. Behind it