Jackal God Relations
The Egyptian jackal gods were part of a wider religious system — one in which the gods were related to one another in various ways. Family relations among gods are complicated by the fact that Egyptian religion accommodates many different (and sometimes contradictory) traditions based on different local myths.
Thus, the jackal god Anubis is sometimes described as the son of the cow goddess Hezat, but more often as the son of the gods Osiris and Isis. Variant traditions, however, described Anubis as the son of an adulterous relationship between Osiris and Nephthys. Anubis is thus the full or half-brother of the god Horus in these traditions. As such, he is also related to the jackal god Duamutef, one of the four sons of Horus. But which Horus: Horus-the-elder, brother of Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys? Or Horus, son of Osiris and Isis?
In later periods, Anubis is described as the son of Isis and Serapis, a form of the god Osiris that was Hellenized to appeal to the growing Greek population of Egypt in the Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BC). Serapis, Isis, and Anubis were sometimes worshipped as a group outside of Egypt.