ANUBIS In Egyptian mythology, the watcher over the dead. Anubis is depicted as having a jackal's head, and his task was to supervise the passage of souls to their abode in the next world. He presides over tombs, and in this capacity, he is often depicted as standing over a bier on which a corpse is deposited. He was the son of Osiris and Nephthys, a sister of Isis, who, fearing the envy of Isis, hid the child by the seashore.