*Written by Lark Devon, author of adult fantasy romance where the research shows. Published September 28, 2026.* **Short answer:** A later surviving annal, the Palermo Stone, probably assigns the making of images of Anubis to the First Dynasty reign of Djer. The earliest surviving Pyramid Text corpus begins much later with the Fifth Dynasty ruler Unas. Neither survival date is a birth certificate, and the god's identity persists through changing duties, images, genealogies, and relationships across Egyptian and Greco-Roman traditions. --- How old is Anubis? When I was writing *House of Silence*, I wanted a real answer, and I was a little annoyed to find the record doesn't give you one. It gives you a stack of dated documents, and you work forward from those. ## Does Anubis go back to the First Dynasty? The First Dynasty runs approximately 3100–2900 BCE. A later annal preserved on the Palermo Stone probably places the making of images of Anubis in the reign of Djer. That's evidence for an early tradition written down later, not a Djer-era image archaeologists dug up with the god's name on it. Archaeology often works this way: a later written source is all we get for an idea that might be older. The sensible place to start is what the sources can date. I prefer that qualification to a false birthday. "Probable reign" and "later surviving annal" tell us exactly how the date reaches us. ## When does the written evidence become secure? The earliest surviving Pyramid Text corpus begins in the late Fifth Dynasty, with Unas's pyramid as the earliest surviving example. University College London dates the corpus to the late Old Kingdom and points readers toward standard editions. James P. Allen's scholarly translation gives access to the primary material in an organized form. These texts establish a mortuary god in a large late Old Kingdom funerary corpus. They don't erase the Palermo Stone's probable earlier reference, and neither source tells us the first moment a community imagined or named him. ## What changed across the later periods? Anubis's identity persists while his duties shift. Old Kingdom funerary formulae and Pyramid Texts establish a mortuary role. Coffin Texts and expanded Osirian theology in the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom create new emphases and relationships. New Kingdom Books of the Dead, from about 1550 BCE onward, add familiar anthropomorphic judgment imagery and embalming scenes. Those developments are historically valuable precisely because they are later. A modern reader may recognize the tableau instantly, while an early dynastic character could not have inherited it unchanged. ## Was the family story always the same? The famous genealogy is late and variable. Plutarch's *Isis and Osiris*, preserved in a Greco-Roman context, offers evidence for a later account of divine relationships. It cannot be back-projected into First Dynasty theology as though one family chart governed three thousand years. The visual form changes too. Canid figures, jackal-headed anthropomorphic images, standards, and recumbent statues are related signs, and each has its own history between the beginning of Egypt and Rome. That changing visual kit gives me more material to work with than one fixed costume would. Hellenistic and Roman Hermanubis supplies the endpoint in this timeline. Translation and merger become part of continuity. A god can remain recognizable while the culture around him gives him new company and new duties. That's good news for me as a writer. If the family story is late and keeps varying, I don't have to pick one version and call it the faithful one. ## A dated timeline | Evidence or development | Date | What it supports | |---|---:|---| | Palermo Stone annal, probably referring to Djer's reign | First Dynasty reign remembered in a later surviving record | Creation of images of Anubis, with the attribution and survival context stated cautiously | | Pyramid Texts | Late Old Kingdom, beginning with Unas | Earliest surviving pyramid corpus | | Coffin Texts and expanded Osirian theology | First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom | Changed roles and relationships | | Books of the Dead and judgment imagery | New Kingdom, from c. 1550 BCE | Later guidebook and iconographic development | | Hermanubis | Hellenistic and Roman periods | Syncretic endpoint | ## Myth vs. Reality | Myth | Reality | |---|---| | Anubis was born as the familiar heart-weighing guide. | Roles and images develop across dated periods. | | Anubis has one simple historical birthday. | A later annal probably remembers images under Djer, while the first surviving pyramid corpus is much later. | | One genealogy governed every period. | Parentage and relationships vary, with Plutarch representing a later context. | | Continuity means unchanged function. | Mortuary, embalming, judgment, and syncretic roles shift. | > [!lore] Thirty-seven attendants lie silent. The thirty-eighth is still asking questions. *House of Silence* is now available on Lark Devon. [Enter the tomb →](https://larkdevon.com/storytime/story/house-of-silence) ## How I Used This in House of Silence <!-- lark-relationship-inline-image -->  I wanted Anubis in *House of Silence* to carry the pressure of deep time without turning every later image into an early dynastic costume. The story is Egyptian-inspired, syncretic fantasy. He can feel ancient in Henuti's sealed world while the article keeps the evidence honest about what each dated source proves. The changing duties became story material. A god whose office persists through reassignment has room for habit, refusal, and surprise. I borrowed the continuity and invented the encounter. The boundary between those acts matters, especially when the reader is deciding which parts of the dark belong to history and which belong to Henuti. The long history gives the novel a god with continuity and room for uncertainty. ## What Anubis Thinks *The novel gives Anubis no private viewpoint. This non-canon blog exercise imagines the answer I hear when I give him a timeline.* --- The Witness Before Dynasties remembers the First Dynasty as a historical horizon in the human record. A later annal probably assigns images of him to Djer's reign. He keeps the survival of that claim separate from the event it describes. The Keeper of First Traces observes the Pyramid Texts beginning in the late Old Kingdom corpus. Unas preserves the earliest surviving pyramid example. The record opens a door. He knows the room behind it is older. Coffin Texts bring another arrangement of duties. New Kingdom books bring judgment scenes and embalming images. The Lord of Changing Rites remains near the dead while human ritual adds new duties to his office. Plutarch records a later genealogy. Hellenistic and Roman worship produces Hermanubis. The Bearer of Traveling Names accepts translation as a fact of endurance. Names and titles travel. The dead still require a guide. You ask for one age and one face. The Walker Upon the Open Road keeps the dates. A canid standard, a written formula, a jackal-headed figure, and a Roman merger each belong to their own chamber. The path between them remains open, and he remains upon it. > [!lore] A sealed royal tomb, a presence in the dark, and a woman asking for a future of her own. Read *House of Silence* on Lark Devon. [Start with the free first chapter.](https://larkdevon.com/storytime/story/house-of-silence) ## Related Questions **Is Anubis older than Osiris?** The surviving evidence gives a secure late Old Kingdom textual horizon for Anubis and later evidence for expanded Osirian theology. It does not establish a simple birth order for the gods across all periods. **What are the Pyramid Texts?** They are a late Old Kingdom corpus of funerary texts, with the earliest surviving pyramid example in Unas's pyramid. *House of Silence* draws on early Egyptian atmosphere as syncretic fantasy. **When does the familiar heart-weighing scene appear?** The evidence places mature anthropomorphic judgment imagery in the New Kingdom and later. It should not be treated as First Dynasty doctrine. **Who was Hermanubis?** Hermanubis belongs to Hellenistic and Roman syncretic traditions. He is evidence of later translation and merger, not Anubis's origin. ## Related Reading - [Why Did Egypt's First Kings Take Their Retainers to the Grave?](https://larkdevon.com/blog/why-did-egypts-first-kings-take-their-retainers-to-the-grave) - [Were Egypt's Royal Retainers Buried Alive? What Archaeology Can Actually Tell Us](https://larkdevon.com/blog/were-egypts-royal-retainers-buried-alive) - [Inside a First Dynasty Royal Tomb: What Was Sealed in the Dark?](https://larkdevon.com/blog/inside-a-first-dynasty-royal-tomb) - [What First Dynasty Tombs Reveal About Status in Life and Death](https://larkdevon.com/blog/what-first-dynasty-tombs-reveal-about-status) - [The Women Buried Around Egypt's First Kings](https://larkdevon.com/blog/the-women-buried-around-egypts-first-kings) - [Why Did Egyptians Make a Corpse-Eating Jackal Guardian of the Dead?](https://larkdevon.com/blog/why-did-egyptians-make-a-corpse-eating-jackal-guardian) - [Did Anubis Always Weigh the Heart? How His Role Changed Over Time](https://larkdevon.com/blog/did-anubis-always-weigh-the-heart) - [Anubis and Wepwawet: How to Tell Egypt's Two Jackal Gods Apart](https://larkdevon.com/blog/anubis-and-wepwawet-how-to-tell-egypts-two-jackal-gods-apart) - [Sex, Death, and Resurrection in Egyptian Religion: What the Evidence Really Dates To](https://larkdevon.com/blog/sex-death-and-resurrection-in-egyptian-religion-what-the-evidence-really-dates-to) ## Sources 1. University College London, Digital Egypt, “Pyramid Texts,” 2001, [resource](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/literature/religious/pyramid.html). 2. James P. Allen, *The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, Second Edition*, Writings from the Ancient World 38, SBL Press, March 2015, [publisher record](https://cart.sbl-site.org/books/061538P). 3. Günter Dreyer, “Abydos, Ägypten: Die Königsgräber der 1. und 2. Dynastie,” *e-Forschungsberichte des DAI*, 2014, published record 2023, [DOI](https://doi.org/10.34780/l6ma-3b97). 4. Plutarch, *Isis and Osiris*, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt, *Moralia* V, Loeb Classical Library 306, Harvard University Press, 1936, [LacusCurtius text](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Isis_and_Osiris%2A/A.html). 5. Brian Muhs, “The Early Dynastic Period (c. 3000–2686 BCE),” in *The Ancient Egyptian Economy: 3000–30 BCE*, Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 13–20, [DOI](https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316286364.002). 6. Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Transforming the Dead,” 2014, [PDF](https://www.metmuseum.org/-/media/files/about-the-met/curatorial-departments/egyptian/facsimiles/2014_transformingthedead_web.pdf). 7. Amin Benaissa, “The Onomastic Evidence for the God Hermanubis,” in *Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Papyrology*, University of Michigan Press, 2010, pp. 67–76, [full text](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/i/icp/7523866.0025.116/--onomastic-evidence-for-the-god-hermanubis?rgn=main%3Bview%3Dfulltext).