Jackals
Jackals, slender built relations of the dog, are opportunistic scavengers and night hunters of insects and small mammals, playing an important ecological part. One of their characteristics is their high pitched nocturnal howling.Anubis, the god responsible for the preservation of the dead, is generally depicted with a jackal's or some other canine's head. He also supervises the weighing of the deceased's heart. Another instance of jackals populating the underworld is mentioned in the Book of Gates, where twelve jackal-headed deities guard the rectangular Sea of Life.
Khentamenti, First of the Westerners, i.e. of the denizens of the realm of the setting sun - the deceased, was the jackal- or perhaps dog-headed god of the necropolis of Abydos. During the late First Intermediate Period he came to be identified with Osiris, Lord of the West.
In New Kingdom tombs a brick decorated with a jackal was inserted in the eastern wall connected withthe Horus son Duamutef (Each of the other three walls had also a symbol: to the west a djed pillar, a torch to the south and an ushebti to the north).
Upuaut was another god in canine shape, thought to have been a jackal or a wolf. Latest update: February 2004
