Iconography

Wepwawet was usually depicted in the form of a jackal or other wild canid and occasionally as a jackal-headed man. In zoomorphic form the god may be differentiated from Anubis when colour is present, as Anubis was usually depicted as black and Wepwawet, grey. When standing, the latter animal was also characteristically depicted with its sloping back legs together rather than apart. But as a jackal-headed man the god often appears indistinguishable from Anubis and can then only be differentiated by a naming text, if not by his attributes of mace and bow. vignettes of the 138th chapter of the Book

Mammalian Deities

King Wepwawetemsaf before Wepwawet in hybrid form. Limestone stela from Abydos. 13th dynasty. British Museum.

Mammalian Deities

Finely carved limestone liead of die curved-horned. ‘Amun raw' Ovis platyra 29 th dynasty-early Ptolemaic Period, c 400-200 BC. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Of the Dead Anubis and Wepwawet are depicted on either side of a representation of Osiris. As symbols of north and south or east and west are also usually depicted on each side, it seems clear that the two gods could have symbolic orientational significance - with Anubis often being linked to the north and Wepwawet the south. When depicted on his standard, Wepwawet usually has before him a peculiar bolster-like emblem called the shedshed which may have represented the royal placenta which was regarded as the king’s ‘double’.