Now I know I don't study Egyptology, but other people smarter than I do. For example, the other day my friend Jenny (who does study Egyptology) wrote on her blog about dogs in ancient Egypt--I thought it was cool that there at least 77 dogs with names in Egyptian records.
She mentioned that some of the Egyptian dogs may have been ancestors of Basenjis (which everyone knows I have) .
So I started looking at it, and it turns out that many of the hieroglyphs and carvings and statues show dogs that have all the characteristics of Basenjis--curly tails, pointed ears, medium size. I found a website made by a Basenji owner that investigates them in ancient Egypt.
She says that one of the common hieroglyphs for the word 'dog' not only includes the phonetic spelling, but also a small picture to distinguish the 'dog' word from other words that sound the same (and that the dog used often looked like a Basenji):
Below is the hieroglyphic spelling tsm, one word for dog. The first three symbols represent the phonetic spelling: the hobble rope [top left] equals t, the bolt [bottom left] equals s, and the owl equals m. The pictogram for dog follows, cementing the meaning of the word.
But then again, who knows? I don't want to include a link because I didn't ask for permission and she may not be very scholarly. But maybe I will anyway.
Anyway, in reading about the history of Basenjis, I learned that they originated in central Africa, but made their way to Egypt as gifts for pharaohs and other important people and eventually caught on as a cool pet. I guess sort of like how lots of people started carrying Chihuahuas after Paris Hilton did it.
They sure do look a lot alike (that's Sam on the left. I don't know the doggy's name on the right):
1 Comment:
I like this post :) The pictures are great! I want to know more about the last slab. I think that if the glyphs above the dog giv it's name, then it's name might mean something like 'guards the door' or have something to do with openings or doorways (that's the determinative symbol at the end) and the hand is the glyph for d or dj. I dont have a dictionary that goes from english to egyptian or I would start looking up the words for guard and synonyms. Anyway, it's a cute dog.
One other cool thing is that domestic dogs almost always have collars :) Pretty cute, I thought.
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