Anubis Bust, Jackal Headed Egyptian God

He has the head of a jackal because a jackal is what you saw at the edge of a burial ground, and somebody decided that meant he was in charge of it.

The oldest job in the world

Anubis weighed the heart against a feather. Lighter, and you went on. Heavier, and something with a crocodile’s jaw was waiting. He is not a god of death so much as a god of paperwork, and he has been doing it for four and a half thousand years.

Three hundred and twenty millimetres

Full display scale, the size collectors’ busts are made at. On a shelf it comes to eye level and the ears go well above it. It is not an ornament that sits politely behind something else.

The detail is in the headcloth

The nemes is the hard part: every stripe is a separate raised band running from the crown down over the shoulders, and they have to stay parallel the whole way or the eye catches it instantly. The broad collar underneath is ringed and banded the same way. Those two surfaces are most of the print time and all of the reason it looks like it cost more than it did.

The face is left smooth on purpose. Egyptian sculpture does not texture fur, it polishes form, and the contrast between the plain muzzle and the worked headcloth is the whole composition.

Left unpainted

Bare bone-white filament, no paint, no gloss. It reads as carved stone rather than as a figurine, and a flat surface shows the geometry of the nemes far better than any finish would. A wash pushed into the stripes is an option later, and it will be an option you can buy.

How it stands

The bust is 320 mm on its own and stands square without a base. A plinth with a plate is being built to fit every bust we make, so this one will have somewhere to sit and a name on it. If that is the version you want, say so and you will be told the day it is ready.

The numbers

• 320 mm tall, not counting a plinth.
• Printed and finished by hand in Australia. Nothing cast, nothing outsourced.
• WEIRDO 005. That number belongs to this design and will never be given to another.

How it is made

Modelled from scratch, printed here on our own machines, then cleaned up and packed by hand. Faint layer lines follow the contours, because it was made rather than moulded, and no two come out quite identical.

PLA, which softens around 60 degrees, so keep it out of direct sun and out of a parked car in summer.

Looking after it

The ears are the fragile part and they are also the highest point, so lift it by the shoulders and never by an ear. Dust along the stripes with a soft dry brush rather than a cloth, which catches on the bands.

Ordering one now

Made to order. Nothing sits in a box waiting, which is why you are not paying for a warehouse. Order it and yours goes into the next batch, usually within a fortnight, and you are emailed when it goes on the bed and again when it ships.

Change your mind before it is printed and we refund it in full without asking why. After that you still have every right you have under Australian Consumer Law, which we cannot exclude and would not want to.