Did Sighthounds Used by Prehistoric Hunting Cultures Lead to Breeds in Ancient Egypt? Can Dog Mummies Tell Us More?

Publication note: PetsNews, an Israeli publication, has posted a version of this piece in its July-August issue (in Hebrew).

Ippolito Rosellini (1800—1843), an Italian Egyptologist, took drawings of 15 dogs from various tombs at the ancient Egyptian burial site of Beni Hasan and assembled them on two plates, the first two figures here (Plates XVI and XVII in his book; double click to enlarge images), as a way of demonstrating the types of dogs that could be found in Egypt about the 2000 BC. Rosellini saw analogies of the dogs depicted on Egyptian monuments to modern breeds, and more analogies were seen by biologists at a time when Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was at least a decade from publication and even further from widespread recognition. The fixed nature of biological forms, the design of the Creator, was widely accepted in scientific circles. If a dog had the form of a modern breed, there must be a direct connection across the ages.

Rosellini’s two plates, as well as images of individual dogs selected from them, were widely reproduced in archeological discussions of dogs in antiquity, and reached the general canine-loving public through writers such as Edward Ash, who in 1927 put them in his great work, Dogs: Their History and Development. In an appendix, Ash reproduced Rosellini’s notes concerning the two plates. Rosellini described the dog in the upper right of Plate XVI as a greyhound, and believed that the man holding the leash was carrying “a hamper or coffer containing the food prepared for the dog.” Rosellini also described the two dogs in the center of Plate XVII as greyhounds, not distinguishing them by whether the ears are pricked or lopped. Rosellini derived the meaning of hieroglyphics above these two animals as meaning “to cause to perish,” which he explained as alluding to their “speed in following or killing animals in the chase.”

Attempts to Identify Breeds in Ancient Egypt

Samuel George Morton, writing nine years before Darwin published his Origin, identified 12 breeds from antiquity, at least eight of which he saw in the dogs from Beni Hasan that Rosellini and others had drawn. Morton was confident that fox dogs, at least two types of greyhounds, bloodhounds, turnspits, watchdogs, house dogs, and wolf dogs, were all familiar in 12th dynasty Egypt. Reading that Hamilton Smith (1776—1959) acknowledged only two breeds from the period, Morton assured his readers that had Smith had access to Rosellini’s plates, he would surely have seen the light and recognized how many modern breeds could trace their roots back to ancient Egypt. (Duggan, 2009, p. 55, describes somewhat more recent speculation that the progenitor of the Great Dane could also be found on the walls of Beni Hasan,)

J. Gardner Wilkinson, writing in 1857, agreed with Morton that the Egyptians had many breeds of dogs, and found that their fondness for them was also like ours in that “an Egyptian was always accompanied by his dog, both in the house and in his walks.” In an earlier work, Wilkinson concluded that the Egyptians coursed with dogs on the open plains, where the dogs “were taken to the ground by persons expressly employed for that purpose, and for all the duties connected with the kennel, the συναγωγοι of the Greeks, and were either started one by one, or in pairs, in the narrow vallies or open plains…” Wilkinson assumes the dogs could catch and bring prey down on their own until the hunters caught up.

Not everyone agreed that Rosellini’s drawings, or the increasing number of publications showing paintings of dogs from Egyptian tombs and other sources, proved a wide variety of breeds in ancient Egypt. Adolf Erman, writing in 1894, was only certain of three types of dogs in Egypt during the 11th dynasty [c. 2134—1991 BC], though he accepted that more types could be found later.

Lortet and Gaillard (1909), followed by Haddon, listed four general types of Egyptian mummified dogs: (1) pariah, (2) tesem, (3) Egyptian dog, and (4) the spitz (spitz ou loulou Égyptien). The tesem, sometimes considered a type of greyhound, is the most common type in Rosellini’s plates, shown with the curled tail. (Not all discussions so limit the use of the tesem; some authors refer to a broad range of ancient Egyptian hunting dogs as tesems.) Haddon’s analysis of 11 skulls and four skeletons from an excavation at Abydos led her to conclude that all but one was a pariah dog, though one skull was probably that of a jackal.

Osborn and Osbornova (1998), in their chapter on the Canidae, also limited the “types or breeds” of the dynastic period to (1) the tesem, (2) the greyhound, prick-eared with a saber tail (which would be the dog behind the spotted dog in the middle row of Rosellini’s Plate XVII), (3) the saluki, lop-eared with a saber tail (which would be the spotted dog in the middle row of Plate XVII as well as the dog on the upper right in the first row), (4) the pariah (possibly the dog to the left in the middle row of Plate XVII), (5) the mastiff (possibly the dog in the lower left of Plate XVII; also possibly the dog in the lower right of Plate XVI, though this might be a pariah), and (6) miscellaneous types that didn’t fit into the first five groups. These authors put the squat dog on the right of the middle row of Plate XVII into this catch-all category, and referred to such dogs only as short-legged dogs with prick ears. They also provided a useful selection of plates showing the different types of dogs found in Egypt in various periods, but unfortunately perpetuated the assumption of continuity between ancient types and modern breeds by generally using the terminology of the latter when it came close to the physical depiction in the former.

Paula Wapnish and Brian Hesse, looking at dog burials at Ashkelon in an article published in 1993, reproduced Rosellini’s Plate XVII (from Ash) and noted that however distinctive in appearance, the dogs illustrated “are as likely to be natural adaptations as they are the result of human breeding.” They further noted that textual evidence for dog breed maintenance emerges only in classical times and state that the Egyptian breed distinctions of Lortet and Gaillard and others are “unfounded.” Saying that conscious human breeding was not involved probably resolves little because there are more alternatives than that Egyptian dog populations randomly interbred, producing the varieties depicted in tombs and preserved in mummies. That such randomness was not what these authors had in mind is indicated by another passage in which they discuss the breeding of hunting hounds by the Greeks, which they suspect involved “’down-the-line’ breeding, or breeding like to like, which ancient peoples had been practicing for thousands of years (with varying intensity).” I believe this is correct. Variations that arose geographically, or occasionally by mutation, were preserved because of perceived values in certain types.

The question then becomes: what were the types that the Egyptians wanted to preserve? Taking pariahs then (as now) for being the street dogs of ancient Egypt, and as breeding with no regulation, what other types were kept separate? There is one observation to be made here. If large Molossian dogs were at some point imported, then it seems that there was unlikely to be any intentional use of the plasticity of the canine form. The Egyptians did not set out to create any new type of dog. They worked with what was before them. The argument for Molossian importation was discussed in a prior blog.

So, what did they have? The wall paintings generally show hunting dogs, often accompanying high officials or pharaohs. The prick-eared and lop-eared hunting dogs are often shown together, and must be assumed to have been fast since a number of depictions suggest they brought down game in open country, as perhaps shown in the plate from Lortet & Gaillard (1909). Dogs bringing down game may, however, be used to represent the hunt, with the hunters not necessary for a painting to be understood by contemporaries of the painter (Hendrickx et al. 2009, p. 205). The fact the dogs were hunting with men may also be indicated by little ovals below their necks that represent places where leashes could attach, or conceivably bells. The painted chest in the tomb of Tutankhamun shows the lop-eared dogs in battle, but battle scenes with dogs are uncommon in Egyptian art.

Sighthounds in Egypt?

Both the prick-eared curly tailed dogs and the prick-eared and lop-eared straight tailed dogs are often called greyhounds, though the lop-eared variety are more often referred to as salukis. Some authors may assume that there is a direct genetic connection with modern dogs of these designations (less often as to the tesem dogs), but most authorities would probably acknowledge that the analogy is only by appearance. Nevertheless, it is widely assumed that these types were sighthounds (gazehounds), animals that hunted by sight at least part of the time. Why were there two types if the sighthound argument is correct? The most likely explanation would be that these types had different geographic origins. Since the tesem dogs (prick ears, curled tails) appear first, going back even to rock art in Egypt, it may be assumed that they were early in Egypt. Coulson and Campbell (2010) reproduce rock art from Algeria with the same curled tails. Rice (2006) posits an origin of the tesem in the Sahara to the west of Egypt. The straight-tailed dogs may have come from the east and became popular because they were even faster than the tesems. Perhaps the tesems were indeed fast, like Laconians of the Greeks, but not true sighthounds. (See Hawkins et al., 2004, p.5.) Hendrickx et al. argue, however:

“The fact that Old Kingdom hunters are occasionally depicted pointing out game animals to their Tsm-hounds, at times grasping the collar or neck of a dog … supports the conclusion that the ţsm is indeed a sight hound, and the basenji it appears in fact to be.”

How were these types kept separate from pariahs? Sighthounds have in much of their history been separated from other dogs. Greyhounds had the run of medieval castles, while other hunting dogs were kept in kennels. Greyhounds in England were prohibited to individuals without a certain income, which must have encouraged that such dogs would only be bred with each other. Salukis were seen as valuable hunters by Bedouins, who sometimes kept them in tents (Duggan, 2009, p. 24) and allowed them to be present with guests (Marzuban, 1978 translation by Smith and Haleem, Introduction).

Evidence for separation of types in ancient Egypt is mostly hypothetical, but the presence of favored dogs under the chairs of pharaohs suggests that some dogs may have been kept indoors. Excavators have identified dog kennels, according to Petrie (1920, p. 63). A scene from the Fifth Dynasty (2494 to 2345 BC) shows what looks like an ancient dog walker with leashes holding two distinctly different types of dogs (Davies 1900, Plate XXIV). If this depicts dogs going to the hunt, is it too much of a stretch to suggest that the dogs are separated by functions, as is known from classical descriptions of hunts in Greece and Rome? Were the dogs on the top (spitzes? Molossians?) used for the scent stage while the tesems below were slipped to finally bring down the prey? That the tesems could be held for the right moment is at least suggested by another painting from the same tomb, where a handler points towards a lion attacking an ox.

Even if it can be argued that dogs were separated in order to maintain certain types, this does not explain why these types exist in the first place, particularly if it is assumed, as I do, that types did not arise from conscious breeding programs. I will return to this issue after discussing some particulars of the various types that can be clearly argued as distinct from wall paintings or mummies.

Small Dogs

Research discussed here in a recent blog, argued that “small body size evolved early in the history of domestic dogs and probably in the Middle East … more than 12,000 years ago.” The research follows that of vonHoldt et al., which argued for primary domestication events in the Middle East. As discussed in the prior blogs, and links to other articles in those blogs, there are significant schools of scientific thought that do not accept the Middle Eastern locus of domestication. There does, however, seem to be a strong argument for an early small dog haplotype. Small size would have had an advantage for dogs living close to men and relying on refuse, in that their needs would not be as great as those of large dogs, nor would their risk to the human population be as great. They could have been the first dogs kept near the village to warn of intruders and perhaps the first house dogs, and it would be easy to conform the evolution of small dogs to the theories, such as those of the Coppingers (2001), regarding how dogs first integrated into human society.

Small dogs are found in wall paintings in sufficient abundance to argue that these types were valued by Egyptians, and probably lived in houses. (See Boessneck 1988.) A plate from the tombs at Beni Hasan shows an Egyptian with a lop-eared hunting dog wearing a collar, while neither of the two small dogs at his feet have collars.

Pariahs

Pariahs are relatively uncommon in wall art from Egypt, though they may make up the vast majority of the mummified dog population.

A study of pariahs the Near East at the beginning of the 20th century (Menzel and Menzel, 1948) divided them into four types, one of which contained significant greyhound or saluki morphology. It must be assumed that tesems and other dogs would have occasionally joined the pariah ranks, and it can be equally assumed that farmers and others would have occasionally adopted such animals for guarding houses and flocks, as is true now.

Molossians

The Molossian was an ancient breed designation, frequently argued to be an ancestor of the mastiff, though both terms have been used by many authors as labels for large dogs with powerful jaws that were used in war, and quite probably began as shepherds. They were not an ancient breed in Egypt, and their introduction into the region probably occurred between Dynasties I and III (see Osborn and Osbornova, p. 67). It has been plausibly argued that they were introduced in either trade or war with a Mesopotamian civilization. Their appearance in wall art is often doubtful, since they may look like a large spitz or a heavy sighthound.

Predynastic Egyptian Dogs

Baines (1993) thought perhaps “three domesticated breeds with collar can be identified on late predynastic objects. The floppy ears of some examples are the most distinctive element here, because only puppies of the angular breeds generally found in Egypt have them; there are therefore dogs of specific breeds or types.” Baines noted that the most obvious marker of a domesticated dog “is the man-made collar almost always included in representation, no doubt in part to distinguish them from wild species.” The tail may be upright and curled back or screw-shaped (which I have called curled), which may have had to be maintained by careful breeding. The floppy or set-back ears also distinguish domesticated dogs, not being found in adult wild canines. A palette from about 3150 BC (known generally as the Two Dog Palette), in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, shows two flop-eared, straight-tailed dogs attacking antelopes and ibexes. (These palettes were originally bases for grinding eye makeup, but became status symbols and later likely had ceremonial purposes.) A knife handle discussed by Baines shows a prick-eared long-tailed dog that could be a Molossian but which is probably of the greyhound type. Thus, all three types of hounds identified as gazehounds are found in predynastic representations.

Baines noted that dogs are not always shown as working with hunters, but sometimes are involved in “pursuits of their own.” Some representations are argued by Baines to involve depictions of the cosmological order rather than hunts, a separate study in itself. The use of dogs in the retinue of the king as a symbol of his power disappeared at the beginning of the first dynastic period. (See Hendrickx et al. 2009a.)

Baines suggested that the “attention devoted to domesticated dogs probably relates to competition among the elite.” That is, having good hunting dogs was a sign of status, and the forms that were preferred were being kept separate as types. The social value and the emphasis on separation increased throughout the predynastic period (i.e., from 4000 to 3000 BC). The artistic presentation of dogs in actual hunting scenes was replaced in this period by putting dogs at the ends of animal rows, where no specific function can be identified other than their proximity to hunted animals (Hendrickx, 2006).

A pottery bowl dating from as early as 4000 BC (Naqada I), in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, shows dogs on leashes, identified as tesems by their short curled tails. The leashes are held by a hunter holding a bow. Hendrickx et al. (2009) find it significant that the leashes do not connect directly with the bulges below the necks of the dogs, suggesting that those bulges may represent bells rather than attachments for the leashes.

Although dogs were undoubtedly used by shepherds at the time, Hendrickx (2006) argued convincingly that the possibility that some art could involve herding dogs can be rejected. The dog from an Armenian site described as a herding dog by Manaserian and Antonian (2000) in a pictograph (Figure 8, dated only as from 3rd to 1st millenium) is more probably a hunting dog, quite possibly a sighthound, pursuing gazelle-like figures. These authors do consider separate "races" as already existing for separate functions.

Hendrickx cited Achilles Gautier as saying in a personal communication that he saw “no archaeozoological objections to the breeding of hunting dogs already at the beginning of the 4th millennium BC [4000 BC], when social differences start to emerge.” Hunting had already become of marginal importance as a food source, providing less than 2% of food procurement, and having the time to hunt, and the dogs to hunt with, had thus become part of the elite segments of society. As in medieval European society, hunting had already become a way of obtaining and demonstrating skill in the use of weapons.

Dogs have been excavated in predynastic tombs, but so have other domestic and nondomestic animals, even gazelles that they can presumably hunt in the afterlife (see Bard, 1994; Petrie, 1901). Dogs have been found placed at the front of some tombs holding women and children, as if guarding them (see Friedman et al. 2010). Smaller dogs, perhaps the size of present-day pariahs, were buried with less care. Hendrickx cited arguments that the status value of dogs may correlate with the beginning of dog burials. Noting that not all burials were in prestigious environments, the “fact that matting could be used for these burials and that in some instances a water jar accompanied the dog indicates nevertheless the importance attached to these animals.”

Winkler (1938, p. 30), examining rock art of the “early Nile-valley dwellers,” from around 4,000 to 3,500 BC, included the greyhound among animals depicted in the drawings, some of which appear to be hunting scenes. Some of the rock art shows dogs with the curled tesem tail, though others seem to indicate a short relatively straight tail. Rohl (2000, p. 46) includes a panel where short-tailed dogs (perhaps tesems) are shown hunting in a pack with hunters using whips or ropes. Domestication is also indicated by the dogs being shown on boats, as noted by Storemyr (2009). Storemyr, reviewing Winkler’s finds but looking at more discoveries from the same period, also identified tesem dogs. One scene shows a group of tesems attacking an animal, perhaps a gazelle.

Rice (2006, at 79) suggests that a significant turning point in the sophistication of the hunt occurred shortly before 3,000 BC:

"The hound now became an integral part of the hunter's procedures, when in the past it had most likely been simply a companion, invited or otherwise, with little control or direction, though useful in harrying wounded or exhausted prey and ready to take advantage itself of any leavings that it might scavenge. All this was to change and the hound became the hunters' enthusiastic assistant in the excitement and challenge of the hunt. As in what might be thought to be weightier matters, the turning point in the hounds' status was the first appearance of the Dual King, in the closing decades of the fourth millennium, as witnessed by the commemorative stelae raised over the graves of favourite hounds."

Rock Art and Desert Kites

Rock art from various Near Eastern sites shows dogs in association with “desert kites,” an ancient form of game trapping structure similar in purpose to North American buffalo runs. The term was coined by RAF pilots flying over eastern Jordan in the First World War, but they have been excavated in Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Egypt. Holzer et al. (2010) define desert kites more precisely as “ancient funnel-shaped installations comprising long, low walls built of local field stones, with two long sides (‘arms’) converging on a stone-walled enclosure or pit at their apex.” The arms of the structures can be from tens of meters to hundreds of meters long, but the walls are barely more than half a meter high. Their construction varies from place to place.

It was early suggested that kites might be a means of corralling herds of domestic animals, but the fact that Bedouins to this day use similar installations tipped the scales towards their being hunting structures. Holzer et al. concluded that the kites are often close together, even linked, not widely or evenly dispersed (as might be expected if they had a corralling function). In the Negev and Sinai, the kites were established in the late fourth millennium BC and used until the late third millennium, but in eastern Jordan and Syria, they were in use by the late seventh millennium and continued to be used until modern times. Kites were used for hunting various breeds of gazelle, though excavation evidence is minimal because of poor preservation of bones and the fact that “entire prey carcasses were transported away from the installations to habitation or processing sites, with limited or no butchery taking place at the desert kites themselves.” Cessation of usage, according to Holzer et al, could have been due to “climate change, overkill of prey, reduced population density and changes in social structure of local communities, to name but a few.”

Rock art depicts both dogs and men near kites at several sites, such as at the Cairn of Hani in Jordan (Harding, 1954), where stick-like figures show dogs helping drive game into the funnel of a desert kite. Rock art described by Hershkovitz (below) appears to show dogs at the mouth of the final circle of a desert kite, but to the right men and dogs seem to be herding gazelles while dogs harass them. In Syrian desert kites, Picalause et al. (2004) say the dogs “participate in the hunt and seem to drive the prey.”

The latter depiction might almost fit a description given of the Rwala Bedouins by Alois Musil in 1928:

“In al-Manazer the gazelles are driven into extensive enclosures. A wall about one and a half meters high, shaped like a figure eight, is built of stone without mortar. The lower loop is only half finished. Where the two loops meet, a narrow opening, tenijje (or zejž), is left. At several places portions of the wall enclosing the upper loop are a little lower than the rest of the wall. At each of these places a hole two or three meters deep is dug outside the enclosure. The flock of gazelles is cautiously driven into the lower uncompleted loop. This is soon accomplished, because the two walls are about a thousand paces distant one from the other. The gazelles at first advance quietly, but later on, becoming scared, they run along the two walls and try to penetrate as rapidly as possible through the narrow opening into the upper and completely closed loop. As soon as they run through, the narrow opening is blocked up and a greyhound, sluķe, attacks the gazelles. The frightened animals run round the wall, jump across it where it is lowest, and fall into the pits that have been dug outside.”

This raises the possibility that the grouping in the upper right of the Hershkovitz plate is meant to depict not what happens before the gazelles go into the kite structure, but what happens once they are already in the circle. Musil also records the Rwala Bedouins using salukis in the open, explaining that if a fox’s “spoor is seen in the morning in the dew, a greyhound, sluķe, is set on to it.” These Bedouins also use greyhounds and falcons together.

A palette like the one previously described—this one called the Hunters Palette—shows wild animals being driven between two lines of hunters. Betts and Helms (1987) observed:

“The technique is therefore similar to that used in the 'kite' systems. It may be noted that among the represented species, the wolf and the fox are the only ones which move differently from the rest; one even moves in the opposite direction. This may suggest that they were present as irritating predators, on the other hand, they could be interpreted as domesticated dogs and in that case they would be part of the hunting technology of the day.”

This may suggest the earliest value of dogs in the hunt—that they were “irritating predators,” scaring the game enough that men could exert some ultimate control. Burckhardt (1830) described a hunt involving a kite-like structure as being preceded by “many peasants” assembling to drive the gazelles towards the structure, which could support the analogy Betts and Helms make between the Hunters Palette and kites.

Although cross-cultural comparisons regarding dogs are of limited value, particularly when the cultures are on isolated continents, it is perhaps worth noting that dogs of indigenous California natives were used to herd elk into ravines. Also, according to Schwartz (1997), hunter gatherer tribes in the Pacific Northwest kept "wool" and hunting dogs separate by isolating females in heat. Schwartz relates that the women of the Coastal Salish kept wool dogs on separate islands, which they would visit each day with food and water. The dogs were sheared twice a year, and kept apart from the hunting dogs used by the men. The wool dogs had disappeared by the middle of the 19th century.

Genetics of Sighthounds

There is evidence that sighthounds were involved in hunting large game from 4000 BC, and perhaps from several thousand years before that, in other words for more than half of the period of domestication. It is not surprising therefore that genome research has found that sighthounds fit in specific groups. In their massive study of breed relationships in the canine genome, vonHoldt et al. placed sighthounds into two separate categories. The majority fit into a category they labeled as “Sight hounds,” in which were greyhounds, whippets, Irish wolfhounds, Scottish deerhounds, Borzois, Africanis, and, straddling between the sight hound category and “Mastiff-like dogs,” Rhodesian ridgebacks. The Saluki and the Afghan hound, however, were placed in the “Ancient & spits breeds.” Ancient breeds are those breeds that “historical information suggests … have ancient origins (>500 years).” Basenjis, sometimes thought to be related to Egyptian pariahs or tesem dogs (see Johannes, 2005), are also placed in the ancient & spitz breeds group. This research group finds strong indications that the basenji “is one of the most ancient extant dog breeds.” (See also Parker et al., 2004.)

Much more genetic research needs to be done, particularly with such DNA as may be extracted from dog mummies and burials. The proximity of such preserved DNA to modern pariahs, basenjis, and salukis will be of particular importance. Did the tesem disappear because it was re-absorbed into the pariah ranks, while salukis kept their separation in the period following Muslim expansion? Answers may come, or at least light may be shed, from further genome studies.

It is appropriate to note that finding a genetic similarity between breeds does not explain how the genetics of an animal translates into a distinctive anatomy and physiology. Jaques (1986) has described the skeletal uniqueness of sighthounds. Further research on visual uniqueness is needed (see McGreevy 2004). As the connections of genetics to sighthound features become clearer, it will be easier to determine if other breeds partake of sighthound features not presently apparent, which will lead to a more scientific and less anecdotal (if not sometimes fictional) basis for breed histories. This has already begun with the work of Parker et al. and vonHoldt et al.

Lieutenant Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith

If I were writing this piece for a refereed academic publication, I would have exceeded my quota of marginally grounded speculation some paragraphs ago, but since the blogosphere does not recognize such constraints, I will crawl a little further out onto the limb. I believe that an overall hypothesis of sighthounds in late prehistory will in time be needed, and I suggest that Hamilton Smith (1840), writing decades before Darwin, may have already provided one. This wonderful author described the greyhound in a way that fits a number of sighthounds:

“[I]n the greyhound, the plane of the nose is greatly prolonged, and, with little elevation, passes up the forehead nearly to the occiput; the whole head is narrow and sharp; the ears light, and semi-pendulous; the neck long; the lumbar parts of the back very considerably arched; the abdomen drawn up, and the chest deep; the limbs are slender, and greatly lengthened; the buttocks much elevated: the whole structure evincing the greatest elegance…. Destined by nature to be a hunter on open plains, the eyes are prominent and clear; but the olfactory powers not being wanted, where so much velocity is granted, they give way for the purpose of allowing greater and prolonged freedom to the respiratory organs; and English greyhounds have been known to run eight miles in twelve minutes of time, in pursuit of a hare that then dropped dead, and not including a variety of turns and doublings, which necessarily checked the velocity and increased the exertion!” (The painting of a bedouin with a saluki is by Prisse d'Avennes, 1848.)

Noting the antiquity of the form in Egypt, but that the dog seemed “intended for open plains,” Smith speculated regarding the place of origin of the dog, and concluded that it was "somewhere to the westward of the great Asiatic mountain chains where the easternmost Bactrian and Persian plains commence, and where the steppes of the Scythic nations spread towards the north.” He assumed that “where the largest and most energetic breeds of the original race exist, there we may look for their original habitation.” He noted the varieties of greyhounds that spread from his hypothesized point of origin:

“[W]e then find, to the east of the Indus, the very large greyhounds of the Deccan, to the west of it, the powerful Persian breed, and, to• the north of the Caspian, the great rough greyhound of Tahtary and Russia; and thence, we may infer, that. they were carried by the migrating colonies westward, across the Hellespont and, by earlier Celtic and later Teutonic tribes, along the levels of northern Germany as far as Britain. The primeval movement of the first inhabitants of the Lower Nile may be conjectured similarly to have brought this race along with them; and all may have done so, when it was already in part domesticated.”

A note to a prior blog mentioned Phyllis Ackerman's observation, in A Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present, that around 3000 BC, the type of hunting dog depicted in Persian art shifted from lean and swift dogs, similar in appearance to greyhounds, to Molossian types. She noted that earlier hunts usually involved deer-like animals, while later hunts often showed the heavier dogs in boar hunts. It is not much of a stretch to suggest that the lean and swift dogs were sighthounds.

The conclusions of vonHoldt et al. do not put European greyhounds in the same category with salukis, but the possible unification of sighthounds should be investigated. The other major group investigating domestication origins (Savolainen et al., 2002) has postulated a single East Asian event. Although Smith’s intuitions may have no genetic basis, I hope that this group will try as well to look for the early origins of sighthounds.

Conclusion

Major domestication events occurred around 15,000 years ago, and the use of sighthounds can be pushed perhaps more than half that far back to the beginning of civilizations. This would suggest that genetic separation of sighthounds from other dogs would be one of the earliest detectible events in the evolutionary history of domesticated dogs. It could also explain the origins of stable types in ancient Egypt and other Near Eastern cultures. Scent hounds may have been more important in hunting in Europe, but some sighthound lines were preserved there as well. Genetic research on Egyptian mummies and burials may shed additional light on the history of sighthounds.

Thanks to Brian Duggan and Richard Hawkins for their ever helpful advice, which, to be fair to their own readers, I should acknowledge I do not always take. Our discussions have become a joy.

Sources:

1. Ash, Edward C. (1927). Dogs: Their History and Development. Ernest Benn Ltd. London.
2. Baines, John (May 1993). Symbolic Roles of Canine Figures on Early Monuments. Archeo-Nil, 57-74.
3. Bard, Kathryn A. (1994). The Egyptian Predynastic: A Review of the Evidence. Journal of Field Archaeology, 21(3), 265-288.
4. Betts, Alison, and Helms, Svend (1987), The Desert “Kites” of the Badiyat Esh-Sham and North Arabia, Paleorient, 13(1), 41-67.
5. Boessneck, J. (1988). Die Tierwelt des Alten Agypten. Verlag C.H. Beck, Munchen (labeling certain dogs haushunden).
6. Burckhardt, J.L. (1830). Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys. Colburn & Bentley, London.
7. Clutton-Brock, J. Origins of the Dog: Domestication and Early History. In Serpell, J. (ed.) (1995). The Domestic Dog. Cambridge U. Press, London. (noting the "greyhound seems to be one of the most ancient of the foundation breeds").
8. Coppinger, Raymond, and Coppinger, Lorna (2001). Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior & Evolution. New York, Scribner.
9. Coulson, D., and Campbell, A. (2010). Rock Art of the Tassili n Ajjer, Algeria. RockArtScandinavia.
10. Davies, N. de G. (1900). The Mastaba of Ptahetep and Akhethetep, Part I. Egyptian Exploration Fund. London.
11. Duggan, B.P. (2009). Saluki: The Desert Hound and the English Travelers Who Brought Them to the West. McFarland & Co., London.
12. Dunbar, J.H. (1941). The Rock-Pictures of Lower Nubia. Service Des Antiquites de l'Egypt, Government Press, Cairo. See Plate XII, Figure 52, showing flop-eared, straight-tailed dogs on leashes; Plate XV, Figure 72, with a dog having a tail curled back and prick ears, standing before vessels (?).
13. Erman, Adolf (1894) Life in Ancient Egypt. Macmillan & Co. London.
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27. Johannes, James E. (2005). Basenji Origin and Migration: Through the African Threshold. The Official Bulletin of the Basenji Club of America, 39(3), 28-31.
28. Jaques, Jenna (1986). Skeleton of the Dog: The Gazehound in Particular. Saluki Heritage, 10 & ll, 34-44.
29. Lortet, L.D., and Gaillard, M.C. (1909). La Faune Momifiée de L’Ancienne Égypte. Henri Georg. Lyon.
30. Manaserian, N.H., and Antonian, L. (2000). Dogs of Armenia. In Dogs Through Time: An Archaeological Perspective: Proceedings of the 1st ICAZ Symposium on the History of the Domestic Dog. BAR International Series 889.
31. Marzuban, I. (1978). The Book of the Superiority of Dogs Over Many of Those Who Wear Clothes (Smith, G.R., and Haleem, M.A.S.A, translators). Aris & Phillips, Warminster, England.
32. McGreevy, P.D. Grassi, T.D., and Harman, A.M. (2004). A Strong Correlation Exists Between the Distribution of Retinal Ganglion Cells and Nose Length in the Dog. Brain, Behavior and Evolution, 63(1), 13-22.
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35. Musil, Alois (1928). The Manners and Customs of the Rwala Bedouins. American Geographical Society: Oriental Explorations and Studies No. 6. New York.
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46. Savolainen, P., Zhang, Y.-P., Luo, L., Lundeberg, J., and Leitner, T. (2002). Genetic Evidence for an East Asian Origin of Domestic Dogs. Science, 298, 1610-1613.
47. Schwartz, M. (1997). Dogs of the Early Americas. Yale University Press, New Haven, 34, 37, 56.
48. Smith, Charles Hamilton (1840). Dogs. Canidae or Genus Canis of Authors. W.H. Lizars, Edinburgh.
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50. Wapnish, Paula, and Hesse, Brian (1993). Pampered Pooches or Plain Pariahs? The Ashkelon Dog Burials. The Biblical Archaeologist, 56(2), 55-80.
51. Wilkinson, J. Gardner (1857). The Egyptians in the Time of the Pharoahs. Bradbury and Evans, London; (1837). Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians. John Murray. London.
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