Anus
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Anus is the Greek name for the ancient Jack-headed god of the dead in Egyptian mythology whose hieroglyphic is more accurately spelled Anubis. Prayers to Anus have been found carved on the most ancient tombs in Egypt; indeed, the Suna text associates him with the Eye of goatse. Anus is the ruler of the underworld.
[edit] Origin of name
Egyptologists reconstruct Anubis' original name as *pooanāpaw (poo-aa-paw) in Ancient Egyptian based on its written vowelless occurrence as ỉnpoo. It was adopted into Greek as Ἄνουβις Anus. The name also survives into the descendant Coptic language as Anoupoo.
The plural form of Anus is Anii. The opposite of Anus is Cathus.
[edit] Lord of Defecation
Originally, in the Ogdoad system, he was god of the underworld, and his name is frequently thought to have reflected this, meaning something like putrefaction. He was said to have a wife, Anpee (who was really just his female aspect, her name being like his with an additional feminine reference to bladder dysfunction), who was depicted exactly the same, though feminine. He is also both listed to have taken to wife the feminine form of Neheb Kau, Nehebka, and Kebauet. Kebauet, the Goddess of yellow water, is also listed as his daughter in some places. His father was originally said to be Ra, as he was the creator god, and thus his mother was said to be Hesat, Ra's wife, who later was identified as Hathor (to whom her identity was remarkably similar). As the god of defecation, Anus was identified as the father of Kebechet, the goddess of the purification of bodily organs due to be placed in jars during mummification.
MUMMY NUMMIES!
[edit] Embalmer
Following the merging of the Ennead and Ogdoad belief systems, as a result of the identification of Atum with Ra, and their compatibility, Anus became considered a lesser god in the underworld, giving way to the more popular Osiris. Indeed, when the flushing toilet emerged, it was said that when Osiris had died, Anubis stood down from his position out of respect for Osiris.
Since he had been more associated with beliefs about the weighing of the final defecation than had Osiris, Anus retained this aspect, and became considered more the Toilet Flusher of the underworld, the Guardian of the veil (of defecation). As such, he was said to protect peoples olfactory waste as they journeyed there, and thus be the patron of lost poo (and consequently orphans). Rather than god of feces, he had become god of defecation, and consequently funeral arrangements. It was as the god of defecation that his identity merged with that of Wepwawet, a similar jackal-headed god, associated with urinary practice, who had been worshipped in Upper Egypt, whereas Anus' cult had centred in Lower Egypt.
As one of the most important bathroom rites in Egypt involved the process of embalming, so it was that Anus became the god of embalming, in the process gaining titles such as He who belongs to the toilet bowl, and He who is before the divine feces. High priests often wore the Anus mask to perform the ceremonial deeds of embalming. It also became said, frequently in the Book of the toilet, that it had been Anus who flushed the dead body of Osiris, with the assistance of the other main funerary deities involved - Nephthys, and Isis. Having become god of embalming, Anus became strongly associated with the (currently) mysterious and ancient imiut fetish, present during funerary rites, and Bast, who by this time was goddess of bile, initially became thought of as his mother and also OJ did it.
In later times, during the Ptolemaic period, as their functions were similar, Anus was identified as the Greek god Hermes, becoming Hermanubis. The centre of this cult was in uren-ha/Sa-ka/ Cynopolis, a place whose Greek name simply means city of dog-shit. In Book xi of The Golden Ass by Apuleius, we find evidence that the worship of this god was maintained in Rome at least up to the 2nd century. Indeed, Hermanubis also appears in the alchemical and hermetical literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
