Jackal

The Jackal in Ancient Egypt


 * Egyptian Name:**

//Iwiw//, //Inpw, Oau//, or //Wenesh//


 * Meaning of Name:**[[image:vs22.3.55.jpg width="206" height="110" align="right" caption="Jackal amulet" link="Hieroglyphics"]]

"Howler" or "Wailer"


 * Hieroglyphics:**



For the ancient Egyptians, the Golden Jackal and the Egyptian Jackal were deeply steeped in mythology, and were held to be sacred creatures. Since jackal s often haunted the edges of the desert, especially near the cemeteries where the dead were buried, they were thought to be guardians of the dead. Reports of jackals prowling about tombs are commonly mentioned in literature, and Petrie is quoted as saying "The guides to the Egyptian tombs are the jackal trails." In fact, it is thought that the ancient Egyptians first began the practice of making elaborate graves and tombs to protect the dead from desecration by jackal s. The howling of jackals was taken to be an announcement of a death.

The jackal was associated with the funerary god Anubis, and to a lesser extent the gods Wepwawet and Duamutef. The jackal-god Anubis was one of the most important of the Egyptian deities, the one who embalmed the bodies of the dead and led them to the afterlife. Anubis was the guardian of the body of the god Osiris, and jackals guided the goddess Isis in her search for her husband's body, and protected her from wild beasts.

Jackals were thought to wander dark and lonely places, helping souls that had lost their way to the land of the dead. Jackals were believed to lead the deceased through the Duat - a hymn states that "Anubis know the roads to the beautiful West." According to the Book of Gates, twelve jackal-headed deities guarded the Sea of Life in the Duat, and four jackals towed the barque of the sun-god Ra. Priests wore jackal-headed masks during the holy rite of mummification, and when collecting fees for funerals and offerings to the dead. Jackal amulets were buried with the dead.

Sometimes the deceased king was thought to change into a jackal in order to journey through the Duat - the pharaoh was said to enter his pyramid "like Anubis on his belly" and use the jackal 's senses and speed in order to safely navigate the way to Sehet Aaru. As divine creatures, jackals were sometimes mummified and are often shown wearing golden or red ribbon collars or the Sa Sign, and holding a flail or the Sekhem Scepter. The Was scepter sometimes featured a jackal head.

Although jackals are typically tan in color, in Egyptian art they are often shown colored black. To the Egyptians black was the color of regeneration, death, and the night. In rare instances jackals were kept as pets, such as the one owned by the royal scribe Nhihu.


 * Modern Influence:**

An oft-repeated story attends the discovery of the Pyramid Texts, after they had lain in darkness for 4,000 years, entirely forgotten. In the 1880's a worker employed in the evacuations of Saqqara was walking in the pyramid field as dusk fell. He noticed a jackal walking along the debris of a collapsed pyramid. He was intrigued, for it was unusual to see a jackal alone and in that part of Saqqara, and since the creature seemed not to be apprehensive of a human presence; indeed, it seemed to rather invite observation. The animal disappeared suddenly, and the man guessed that it must have entered a cavity in the ground, with which the surface of the pyramid field was pitted. He follow it; he never saw the jackal again, but it had led him straight into the hidden chambers of the pharaoh Wenis' pyramid and to the immeasurable treasure of the Pyramid Texts.

Howard Carter, discoverer of the tomb of the boy-king Tutankhamen, himself had two encounters with "creatures resembling the black Anubis jackal." According to Carter, "I saw the first example during the early spring of 1926. When in the desert of Thebes I encountered a pair of jackals slinking towards the Nile Valley, as is their custom, in the dusk of the evening. One of them was evidently the common jackal in spring pelage; but its mate - I was not near enough to tell whether the male or the female - was much larger, of lanky build, and black! Its characteristics were those of the Anubis-animal, and it appeared to be the very counterpart of the figure found in the tomb (of Tutankhamen). It may possibly have been a case of melanism, or a throw-back or rare descendant of some earlier species in Egypt . . ."

"The second example that I saw was in October 1928, during early morn in the Valley of the Kings. It had precisely the same characteristics as the former example described, but in this case was a young animal from about seven to ten months old. Its legs were lanky, its body greyhound-like, it had a long pointed muzzle, large, erect, pointed ears, and a drooping tail. Long hairs of a lighter greyish color under the body could be detected . . . . I made inquiries among the inhabitants of Gurna (Western Thebes) regarding these animals. They tell me that individual examples of this black variety, though they are very rare, are known to them, and that they are always far more greyhound or Anubis-creature in form than the ordinary species."

The Canines of Ancient Egypt