Bubis

Bubis is a name that appears in a minority of ancient Egyptian texts and in later scholarly literature as an epithet or variant identification of a jackal-headed deity connected with mummification and the afterlife. In most contexts, the god is known as Anubis (Egyptian Inpw). Some scholars treat Bubis as an alternative regional form or an earlier manifestation of the same deity, while others suggest Bubis may have been a distinct local deity later merged with Anubis. The evidence is limited and interpretations vary.

As in the familiar Anubis tradition, Bubis is associated with funerary rites, the protection of tombs, and the guidance of the dead. In art he is typically depicted as a jackal-headed man or as a jackal; the jackal symbol connotes cemetery guardianship, embalming, and rebirth. In myth and ritual, Bubis is involved in embalming processes and, in some traditions, in the weighing of the heart before the lord Osiris.

The Bubis identity is most clearly attested in late periods of Egyptian history and in Graeco-Roman-era sources, where scribes sometimes used Bubis as an alternate name for Anubis. Early Egyptian sources rarely distinguish the two, and Egyptologists remain divided on whether Bubis should be treated as a separate deity or as a regional or linguistic variant of Anubis.

Today, Bubis is primarily of interest to scholars studying the diversity of divine identities in ancient Egypt. The prevailing view is that Bubis and Anubis refer to overlapping aspects of the same jackal-headed deity rather than two widely distinct gods.