Deity · Egyptian · c. 3000 BCE
Wepwawet
Also called Upuaut, Ophois · also recorded as Wepwawep, Upwaut, Wep-wawet, Up-uatu (per Wikidata)
'Opener of the ways' — goes ahead of the army and ahead of the dead, clearing the road before either has to walk it.
Well sourced
The opener of the ways, and the figure in this corpus whose job description has changed least in three thousand years. He goes in front: his standard is carried ahead of the king in the earliest royal ceremonial, and in the Pyramid Texts he clears the road ahead of the dead king's ascent. The jackal he shares with Anubis has caused most of the confusion about him, and the distinction the texts keep is functional rather than visual — Anubis attends the body and the burial, Wepwawet precedes the procession. One is with you, the other is ahead of you.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
Asyut, which the Greeks called Lykopolis for the jackal standard carried before the king.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- The Pyramid Texts · c. 2350–2100 BCE
- Rank
- Opener of the Ways
- Pantheon
- Egyptian
- Order
- Egyptian pantheon
- Base of operations
- Asyut, which the Greeks called Lykopolis for the jackal standard carried before the king.
- Era
- c. 3000 BCE
- Traditions
- Egyptian
- Placed in
- The Hall of Two Truths
Traits
- Domain
- The opening of roads, military advance, the path through the Duat
- Traditional form
- A standing jackal or wolf on a standard, usually grey
Stats
Known connections
Identified with
1 site
Where was it worshipped?
Attested cult sites, located against the Pleiades gazetteer of the ancient world where it reaches and against Wikidata everywhere else. An absence here is not evidence that no cult existed: a good number of figures never had one, and the entry above says so where that is the case.
now Asyut
Wepwawet's city; the Greeks read his jackal standard as a wolf.
27.181, 31.183 · Pleiades 756593
4 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 4 offices attributed to Wepwawet, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- martial2
- transformation2
2 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Wepwawet, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
2 texts spanning roughly 800 years
Where the texts differ
- Name: given as Wepwawet, Ap-uat
The opener of the ways, clearing the road ahead of the king in the ascent spells. His standard goes in front of the procession in the earliest royal ceremonial, which makes him one of the very few figures in this corpus whose job description has not changed at all in three thousand years.
Precedes the king in procession and the dead through the underworld, opening the road ahead of both. Frequently confused with Anubis, who is black where Wepwawet is grey.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Wepwawet?
Is Wepwawet the same as Anubis?
What rank is Wepwawet?
How else is Wepwawet spelled?
What is Wepwawet said to do?
How old is Wepwawet?
Nearest in the corpus
If Wepwawet is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Khepri
The Morning Sun · Egyptian
The sun at dawn, in the form of a scarab beetle rolling it up over the horizon — one of the three daily aspects of the sun, and a pun on the word for coming into being.
Anubis
Guide of the Dead · Egyptian
Embalmer and psychopomp, who leads the dead to the scales — the office Western tradition eventually gives to Michael and to Azrael.
Horus
Falcon King · Egyptian
Son of Osiris, who contends eighty years with Set for the throne. Every living pharaoh was understood to be his incarnation.
Isis
Great of Magic · Egyptian
The great magician who reassembles Osiris and tricks Ra into surrendering his secret name. Her cult eventually reached as far as Roman Britain.
Nephthys
Lady of the House · Egyptian
Set's wife who sides with her sister Isis against him, and mourns Osiris at the head of the bier.
Osiris
Lord of the Dead · Egyptian
Murdered by Set, reassembled by Isis, and installed as judge of the dead. He is the earliest fully developed dying-and-rising sovereign we have.
The books behind Wepwawet
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
The Pyramid Texts
Anonymous; carved for the kings and queens of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties · c. 2350–2100 BCE · Old Egyptian
Read The Pyramid Texts in full ↗The Egyptian Book of the Dead
Anonymous; tr. E. A. Wallis Budge · c. 1550 BCE onward · Egyptian
Read The Egyptian Book of the Dead in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Hunefer · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.