Anubis Carrying the Moon Disk

**Admin** Thu Oct 15, 2009 1:09 pm

Anubis, the black jackal, was the animal that personified the deity who was believed to protect the cemetery, and thus became the patron deity of mummification. Anubis was depicted in funerary scenes guiding the deceased to Osiris in the court of justice. Embalmers performing the mummification of the corpses wore jackal masks. In the legend of the divine birth of Queen Hatshepsut and King Amenhotep the third, Anubis is represented rolling or bringing the disk of the moon and wishing the young royal children long life. In modern times, ceremonies performed on the seventh day of a child's birth contain a step, in which the newly born child is put in a sieve and is shaken and asked to "obey his mother and not to obey his father." On this cartonnage piece, the jackal-headed god comes, carrying the disk of the moon, and wishing the deceased long life. He wears a gilded collar, an unusual short kilt with a long tail hanging from the front and sandals. A long, wide white drapery hangs from behind and reaches the feet.

Dimensions: Width 13.5 cm Height 33.5 cm