ANUBIS

 ANUBIS
"It occurred to me that judging from the elaborateness of this worship, the concealed deity must be one of considerable importance. Was it Osiris or Isis, Horus or Anubis, or some vast unknown God of the Dead still more central and supreme?"
H.P. Lovecraft & Harry Houdini, Under the Pyramids

"His distinctive black coloring did not have to do with the jackal but with the color of rotting flesh and with the black soil of the Nile valley."
Charles Freeman, The Legacy Of Ancient Egypt

"Anubis was the terrifying canine god who presided over the mummification of bodies and guarded burials. He was usually shown as a seated black jackal or as a man with the head of jackal or wild dog."

"The Jackals and wild dogs who lived on the edge of the desert were carrion eaters who might dig up shallowly buried corpses. To avert this horrible end for their dead, the early Egyptians tried to placate Anubis, 'the dog who swallows millions.' "

"A story recorded in the first millennium BCE tells how the wicked go Seth disguised himself as a leopard to approach the body of Osiris. He was seized by Anubis and branded all over with a hot iron. This, according to Egyptian myth, is how the leopard got its spots. Anubis then flayed Seth and wore his bloody skin as a warning to evil doers. By this era, Anubis was said to command an army of demon messengers who inflicted suffering and death."

"Anubis remained and important funerary god in the Roman Period, but his cult was singled out for abuse by Roman writers. This may have been partly 
because of his popularity with necromancers."
 Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology: A Guide To the Gods, Goddesses and Tradition Of Ancient Egypt