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    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)",
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    "title": "ANU",
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    "verified_text": "anu, a babylonian deity, who, by virtue of being the first figure in a triad consisting of anu, bel and ea, came to be regarded as the father and king of the gods. anu is so prominently associated with the city of erech in southern babylonia that there are good reasons for believing this place to have been the original seat of the anu cult. if this be correct, then the goddess nana (or ishtar) of erech was presumably regarded as his consort. the name of the god signifies the \"high one\" and he was probably a god of the atmospheric region above the earth--perhaps a storm god like adad (q.v.), or like yahweh among the ancient hebrews. however this may be, already in the old-babylonian period, i.e. before khammurabi, anu was regarded as the god of the heavens and his name became in fact synonymous with the heavens, so that in some cases it is doubtful whether, under the term, the god or the heavens is meant. it would seem from this that the grouping of the divine powers recognized in the universe into a triad symbolizing the three divisions, heavens, earth and the watery-deep, was a process of thought which had taken place before the third millennium. to anu was assigned the control of the heavens, to bel the earth, and to ea the waters. the doctrine once established remained an inherent part of the babylonian-assyrian religion and led to the more or less complete disassociation of the three gods constituting the triad from their original local limitations. an intermediate step between anu viewed as the local deity of erech (or some other centre), bel as the god of nippur, and ea as the god of eridu is represented by the prominence which each one of the centres associated with the three deities in question must have acquired, and which led to each one absorbing the qualities of other gods so as to give them a controlling position in an organized pantheon. for nippur we have the direct evidence that its chief deity, en-lil or bel, was once regarded as the head of an extensive pantheon. the sanctity and, therefore, the importance of eridu remained a fixed tradition in the minds of the people to the latest days, and analogy therefore justifies the conclusion that anu was likewise worshipped in a centre which had acquired great prominence. the summing-up of divine powers manifested in the universe in a threefold division represents an outcome of speculation in the schools attached to the temples of babylonia, but the selection of anu, bel and ea for the three representatives of the three spheres recognized, is due to the importance which, for one reason or the other, the centres in which anu, bel and ea were worshipped had acquired in the popular mind. each of the three must have been regarded in his centre as the most important member in a larger or smaller group, so that their union in a triad marks also the combination of the three distinctive pantheons into a harmonious whole. in the astral theology of babylonia and assyria, anu, bel and ea became the three zones of the ecliptic, the northern, middle and southern zone respectively. the purely theoretical character of anu is thus still further emphasized, and in the annals and votive inscriptions as well as in the incantations and hymns, he is rarely introduced as an active force to whom a personal appeal can be made. his name becomes little more than a synonym for the heavens in general and even his title as king or father of the gods has little of the personal element in it. a consort antum (or as some scholars prefer to read, anatum) is assigned to him, on the theory that every deity must have a female associate, but antum is a purely artificial product--a lifeless symbol playing even less of a part in what may be called the active pantheon than anu. for works of reference see babylonian and assyrian religion. (m. ja.) anubis (in egyptian _anup_, written _inpw_ in hieroglyphs), the name of one of the most important of the egyptian gods. there were two types of canine divinities in egypt, their leading representatives being respectively anubis and ophois (wp-w'-wt, \"opener of the ways\"): the former type is symbolized by the recumbent animal [hieroglyph], the other by a similar animal (in a stiff standing attitude), carried as an emblem on a standard [hieroglyph] in war or in religious processions. the former comprised two beneficent gods of the necropolis; the latter also were beneficent, but warlike, divinities. they thus corresponded, at any rate in some measure, respectively to the fiercer and milder aspects of the dog-tribe. in late days the greeks report that [greek: kunes] (dogs) were the sacred animals of anubis while those of ophois were [greek: lykoi] (wolves). the above figure [hieroglyph] is coloured black as befits a funerary and nocturnal animal: it is more attenuated than even a greyhound, but it has the bushy tail of the fox or the jackal. probably these were the original genii of the necropolis, and in fact the same lean animal figured _passant_ [hieroglyph] is s'b \"jackal\" or \"fox.\" the domestic dog would be brought into the sacred circle through the increased veneration for animals, and the more pronounced view in later times of anubis as servant, messenger and custodian of the gods. anubis was the principal god in the capitals of the xviith and xviiith nomes of upper egypt, and secondary god in the xiiith and probably in the xiith nome; but his cult was universal. to begin with, he was the god of the dead, of the cemetery, of all supplies for the dead, and therefore of embalming when that became customary. in very early inscriptions the funerary prayers in the tombs are addressed to him almost exclusively, and he always took a leading place in them. in the scene of the weighing of the soul before osiris, dating from the new kingdom onwards, anubis attends to the balance while thoth registers the result. anubis was believed to have been the embalmer of osiris: the mummy of osiris, or of the deceased, on a bier, tended by this god, is a very common subject on funerary tablets of the late periods. anubis came to be considered especially the attendant of the gods and conductor of the dead, and hence was commonly identified with hermes (cf. the name hermanubis); but the role of hermes as the god of eloquence, inventor of arts and recorder of the gods was taken by thoth. in those days anubis was considered to be son of osiris by nephthys; earlier perhaps he was son of re, the sun-god. in the 2nd century a.d. his aid was \"compelled\" by the magicians and necromancers to fetch the gods and entertain them with food (especially in the ceremony of gazing into the bowl of oil), and he is invoked by them sometimes as the \"good ox-herd.\" the cult of anubis must at all times have been very popular in egypt, and, belonging to the isis and serapis cycle, was introduced into greece and rome. see erman, _egyptian religion_; budge, _gods of the egyptians_; meyer, in _zeits. f. aeg. spr._ 41-97. 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