Can we talk about Kebechet for a quick sec?
Cause I really want to talk about Kebechet for a quick sec.
So, for those that don’t know, Kebechet is the daughter of Anubis in Egyptian mythology.
Before I can really talk about Kebechet, I should first clear up some misconceptions about Anubis some people might have, because it’s actually kind of important to the story.
First and foremost, Anubis is NOT the God of Death, or rather the God of the Duat, the Egyptian afterlife. A lot of people tend to think of Anubis as the Egyptian equivalent of Hades.
First off, It’s an incredibly aggravating pet peeve of mine when people say ‘Oh, this god is the (insert culture here) equivalent of (insert culture here)’s god.’
Because different cultures have different histories which reflect how they develop there spiritual, mythological, and religious belief structures. Saying Anubis is just Egyptian Hades completely ignoring the massive difference in Greek and Egyptian histories that formulated these two deities in the first place.
Point is, cross-cultural parallelism between pantheistic deities is stupid and I don’t like it. Yes, I know that cross-cultural parallelism DOES happen throughout history, especially in regards to mythology (The Greeks and Romans being a major perpetrator of that) but it doesn’t change the fact that some people take it too far in the efforts of simplifying mythologies to make them more easily palatable for the pop-cultural coda, wherein you lose a lot of the nuances and flavor of the mythology when you do that.
So, by all means, study the anthropological process of paganism being osmosis’d into monotheistic belief structures. Just do it responsibly and do your homework first.
Boy, I went off on a tangent.
Anyway, Anubis, not the God of Death or the Afterlife. In many sources, that would be his Father-Uncle Osiris. (Yes, the Egyptian Gods were incredibly incestous, get over it)
Anubis is specifically worshipped as the God of Mummification (Being the inventor of the process of mummification), Funerary Rites, and JUDGING the dead, not so much presiding over them.
Now, keep in mind, one of the more frustrating aspects of Egyptian mythology is that the details of there myths tend to vary from telling to telling. Like, more-so than other mythologies.
This is because deserts... were fucking hot and nigh-impassable without days or weeks of prep-time.
Because of this, the major cities and towns of Egypt were very isolated from each other. They of course had trade and commerce, they were still a collective culture onto themselves. But each city and town tended to develop their own personal sub-cultures that were entirely unique to them.
This process wasn’t exactly unheard of in other cultures. Hell, modern cultures still do this to this day. It’s just that Egypt kind of got hit with this sociological phenomenon more than most because, again, deserts.
Because of this, Egyptian myths and stories tend to have differing... Regional Variants on a lot of the details, both large and small.
Ask for a story in Memphis, then ask for the same story in Cairo, and you’re likely to get two very different tellings.
Just concerning Anubis, there are some versions of the myth where he ISN’T the inventor of mummification. That honor goes to his mother and aunt, Nephthys and Isis, when they resurrected Osiris, to which they then taught Anubis the process so he in turn could teach the priests of Egypt. Other versions still have Anubis working alongside Nephthys and Isis to invent mummification while others hold Anubis as the sole creator of the process.
This is where Anubis’ daughter, Kebechet enters the picture. (Man, I took a long honking time to get to my point!)
So Kebechet is the snake-headed daughter of Anubis with his wife, Anput.
This is one of those ‘Regional Variants’ I was talking about. See, a common element in Egyptian mythology is that many gods came in pairs, one male and one female, who shared in their sphere of influence. So Anput, being Anubis’ female counterpart, was also the Goddess of Mummification and Funerary Rites.
Now, the exact nature for how these male and female counterparts regarded each-other gets a little crazy depending on the variant you ascribe to. In some versions, these counterparts are very literal counterparts, essentially another, alternative form that each God and Goddess could swap to and from at any given time, essentially being both male and female simultaneously.
Other variants simplify this to simply having the counterparts married, or otherwise separate but equal entities.
Point is, when most stories want to empathize who Kebechet’s mother is, they usually go with Anput who, in some ways, is also her father.
Anyway, Kebechet is often depicted as Goddess of Purification. Specifically, the purification of one’s mortal body after death which, in turn, purified the Ka or soul.
See, ancient Egyptians had this thing where letting the body rot would adversely affect the soul in the afterlife. This is why preserving the body through mummification was such a big thing in Egypt.
To that end, Kebechet is often depicted as her father’s aide and assistant in preparing the bodies for the soul’s journey to the afterlife. But, there is one story where she provides a very active roll to the process outside of just being Anubis’ little helper.
See, the story goes that, as Anubis was attempting to perfect the process of mummification, he kept hitting a road-block on how to keep the bodies from rotting before he could even get very far in the whole process.
Kebechet (who I will remind you had the head of a snake), wanting to help her father, bit one of the bodies and injected it with some of her venom.
Miraculously, the venom actually did a wonderful job keeping the body from rotting long enough for Anubis to actually do the whole mummification thing. So, he harvested as much of his daughter’s venom that he could to give to the priests of Egypt.
And that’s the story of how Kebechet invented embalming fluid.
See, what gets me is how exactly that first conversation between Anubis and Kebechet went when she first tried this. Like, how did she know that would work?
Anubis: Argh! Sons of the Pharaohs! No matter what I try, the flesh decays far too quickly. I must find a way to still the rot before-
Kebechet: I HALP!! *happily bites the corpse*
Anubis: Kebechet, sweetie, what the fu-!
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