Perhaps the biggest misconception about Wepwawet is that he is depicted as a white or grey jackal (or jackal-headed man), while Anubis is depicted as a black jackal (or jackal-headed man). Yet historically, Wepwawet and Anubis are
both depicted as black jackals. I think the pervasiveness of this bit of misinformation comes from a desire to be able to clearly and easily differentiate between Wepy and Anubis. Convenient as it would be, a white/grey Wepwy just isn't true to his iconography. In the interest of clearing this up, I wanted to share something I saw on
tumblr forever and a half ago, which was originally written by Bezenwepwy. This particular post reads:
"First off, I am going to point out that the late Terence DuQuesne,
THE foremost expert on jackal deities, adamantly agreed with me that
Wepwawet was not depicted as a grey or white jackal. Claims of such have
very little basis in reality and for the most part seem to arise from
some all too common oversights and misunderstandings.
The biggest of these misunderstandings seems to be the depictions of
Wepwawet in the temple of Seti I in Abydos, where much of the relief
retains colour except for Wepwawet’s head. But it is very important to
stress that a colourless depiction does not equate to ‘white.’ It
equates only to what it is. The overall lack of surviving black paint at
that temple has been noted by scholars. From my reading, the fragility
and poor adherence of the black seems to have been caused by a reaction
between the pigment and the underlying plaster. This temple, along with
others, were also subjected to archeological squeezes, conducted during a
time when egyptologists didn’t really care that much about
preservation. The poor survival rate of black pigment when it comes to
temple reliefs isn’t just limited to Abydos either. And on those reliefs
where the pigment on the face and/or body IS surviving? Yeah, it’s
black.
The second major source of misunderstandings about Wepwawet’s
colouration may come from the painted murals within tombs and decoration
on funerary equipment. A) Tombs and sarcophagi do sometimes feature
unusual colour schemes, so you might find green-skinned, yellow-skinned,
or blue-skinned jackal deities. It tends to be consistent however, with
no differentiation in colouration between Anubis, Duamutef, Wepwawet,
etc, that I have noticed. B) Sometimes the pigment used as black in a
particular tomb does now appear to be more grey, perhaps through
degradation or just because it wasn’t painted on thickly enough or
what-have-you. But that means that the grey is not really meant to be
grey, it is meant to be black. There might be a grey Wepwawet, but other
commonly black elements will also appear to be grey. This does not a
grey Wepwawet make.
A friend of mine brought up a third point when she noticed there are
more depictions of Anubis with surviving pigment than there are of
Wepwawet. She felt this probably has an impact on people’s perception of
what colour Wepwawet is, and I agree that it may very well do! It is,
however, another case of not misinterpreting 'colourless’ for 'is
coloured something other than black.’ He would have originally been
painted black. An interesting thing about depictions of Wepwawet is they
are quite commonly found in areas where there is a greater exposure to
the elements (such as temples) — as opposed to Anubis, who is often is
much more sheltered locations such as tombs or inner rooms. It is only
logical that the pigment would survive better in areas of less exposure.
And, as I’ve implied, black does also seem to be one of the first
colours to go when it comes to temple reliefs.
I must also say that I have yet to find a single instance/location
where Wepwawet and Anubis are actually painted different colours, let
alone enough examples to declare it as an established pattern. (As I
pointed out, unusual colour schemes can and do happen but they should be
considered anomalies. Or a contextual variant if there are enough
examples.) It is therefore deceptive at best to say 'Anubis is painted
black while Wepwawet is painted grey.’ I appreciate that a lot people
have gotten this idea from Wilkinson’s 'Complete Gods and Goddesses of
Ancient Egypt’ and so I actually contacted him about it awhile back. He
had this to say to me: “My comment on Wepwawet was based simply on my
own experience - that a number of examples I have seen (inasmuch as it
is possible to tell that W. is intended) seemed to be grey or not to be
painted black when color was otherwise present. On the other hand,
looking now at what I wrote, I think that the implication that this is
"usually” the case is due to a poor choice of words on my part. I
believe that what I meant was that while Anubis is usually shown as
black, W. is sometimes depicted as grey (or without black). It is
interesting if you have not found any examples of W. that differ so from
Anubis - perhaps it is a rarer phenomenon than I realized.“ (Sadly, we
were not able to get into more specifics at that time.)
I have addressed the lack of black and also the occasional appearance
of 'greyness’ in those situations where it is serving as a substitute
for black or else is suffering from degradation or transparency. It
seems relevant to add that green can also degrade to a quite greyish
look and is a not uncommon skin-tone in funerary contexts due to its
colour symbolism. The thing about grey as a colour is it does not have
its own individual symbolism in AE art. It classifies as black. So it
doesn’t even make any sense, when colour is always used in such a highly
symbolic way, for the Egyptians to have distinguished Wepwawet as being
grey while Anubis is black. It also comes into conflict with the fact
that since the Old Kingdom, the vast majority of jackals, be they gods,
spirits, or even just hieroglyphs, are painted in black."