Why are so many dog breeds in Egyptian art?

I'm starting to believes that any <a href="https://dogencyclopedia.net/articles/entry/9-dog-breed/?s=9172a94baa5a50b38ce9d0699a16740f91368800">dog breed</a> enthusiast that loves a slim, point-eared dog, claims it's the breed depicted in ancient Egyptian art. On tv and online any dog that looks remotely like the famous depictions of slender dogs becomes an ancient…

    Why are so many dog breeds in Egyptian art?

    I'm starting to believes that any <a href="https://dogencyclopedia.net/articles/entry/9-dog-breed/?s=9172a94baa5a50b38ce9d0699a16740f91368800">dog breed</a> enthusiast that loves a slim, point-eared dog, claims it's the breed depicted in ancient Egyptian art. On tv and online any dog that looks remotely like the famous depictions of slender dogs becomes an ancient…...
    Dog Breed Discussions : Why are so many dog breeds in Egyptian art?...

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    • Why are so many dog breeds in Egyptian art?

      Why are so many dog breeds in Egyptian art? Dog Breed Discussions
      I'm starting to believes that any dog breed enthusiast that loves a slim, point-eared dog, claims it's the breed depicted in ancient Egyptian art. On tv and online any dog that looks remotely like the famous depictions of slender dogs becomes an ancient wonder. It's confusing, and I hope someone can shed some light on the issue. Did Egyptians really own pretty much every slender breed or do people just like thinking their dog is Old and special?

      Why are so many dog breeds in Egyptian art?

      Why are so many dog breeds in Egyptian art? Dog Breed Discussions
    • The Egyptians had more than one breed of hound and most were selected or bred for hunting or as family pets. They chose those that resembled the God Anubis with the long thin body and snout and tall thin ears. There is the Ibzi, the Pharaoh hound and the greyhound for starters but there are also breeds that were bred from those than made it from the Gozo Islands to as far away as England over the centuries. Relax. Your friends are proud of their dogs and so should any parent be.

    • Many sighthounds were originally developed in desert and middle eastern regions. These dogs were used for hunting, and were common in the area and therefor the art. They also have a similar build and structure, and are some of the oldest breeds. A saluki is comparable in look to an afghan to a pharoah hound to an ibizian hound to a greyhound. Obviously not IDENTICAL, but the same required function called for the same basic design.I've never heard of your complaint before... Many sighthounds have a very "noble" and "regal" look to them, and because of their hunting ability and worth many were owned by royalty and pharoahs. So could you feel "empowered" by owning one? Special for owning one? I guess so, but I've never encountered an owner of a sighthound who felt this way or thought this way.http://members.tripod.com/~ancient_egypt/doae.html

    • First off, I'd like to start by saying Pharaoh and Ibizan Hounds are NOT ancient, nor do they come from Egypt. Both breeds come from the Mediterranean, and are actually newer breeds in the grand scheme of things. In fact, in many European countries, the Pharaoh Hound isn't even known as the Pharaoh Hound, it's known as the Maltese Hound because it comes from Malta! Somewhere along the line, someone realized that Pharaoh Hounds look a bit like the dogs in some of the pictures from Ancient Egypt, so they "hypothesized" that they were brought to Malta from ancient Egypt, and decided to call them Pharaoh Hounds. Problem with that is that new mitochondrial DNA analysis shows that the Pharaoh Hound (and all the other Mediterranean sighthounds that kinda resemble it), DO NOT come from Africa, AND they are way too new of breeds to have come from there. BUT some people are just stubborn, and refuse to let go of the romantic notion that they are the proud owners of a piece of ancient Egypt. As for what breeds were actually depicted in the art that kinda looked like the Pharaoh Hound? It's anyone's guess, really. They could have been a breed that's now extinct, they could have not been dogs at all, but Golden Jackals or Arabian Wolves instead, they could have been random mixed breed sighthounds that happened to have erect ears, or it's also very possible that these dog were either Basenjis or the ancestor of Basenjis (Basenji come from Africa and notice how in the drawings the dogs tails are fairly short and curl over their back...but that's just a total guess)Now that I've got that off my chest, on to the other part of your question. I totally know what you mean. I have literally seen one picture of King Tut hunting with a sighthound of some sort that 3 different sources all claim is a different breed in the picture. One source says it's a Saluki, one says it's an Afghan, and one source claims it's a Sloughi! By process of elimination, we can *probably* rule out that it's an Afghan Hound, because Afghan Hounds probably aren't an old enough breed to have been around (especially Afghans as we know them today...the long, profuse coat is a very recent thing, created by show breeders). So that leaves the Saluki and Sloughi, on perhaps a completely different breed. What the most likely explanation is that there were no real sighthound breeds back then. The Egyptians just owned sighthound type dogs, that weren't of any one particular breed and that had some variation in appearance. For example, some may have been coated while other weren't. Some may have been smaller than others. They may have had varying ear carriages. What ancient Egyptians most likely cared about was that they did their jobs and did them well, not what they looked like (although, the reason why so many of them appear to have prick ears might be because they may have been intentionally trying to breed their dogs to like the god Anubis (who is actually half man half Golden Jackal), but again, this is ALL speculation). It's also entirely possible that in the Egyptians' conquests, they acquired dogs from various surrounding areas which would explain the variations in appearance. But yet again, NONE of these dogs would have been breeds at this point, and were probably frequently interbred with each other to create better hunting dogs.So, to sum it up, we can never really know which breeds were in the art of the ancient Egyptians, and chances are the dogs depicted weren't of any one particular breed anyway. But the truth is that MANY breeds (especially the older ones who don't have a clear history or creator) have their histories spiced up by their fanciers ALL the time, for many reasons! For example, for the longest time there was some totally made-up story that Golden Retrievers were the descendants of Russian circus dogs! That, of course, is completely ludicrous, but it was done to make their history sound more interesting. And then there's the people who tweak a breed's history to cover-up something, maybe another breed was crossed in somewhere that the breed's fanciers would like to keep secret for some reason. And then there's the breeds that are so ancient that we really just don't know their true history (a la sighthounds), so we create one based on anecdotal evidence and speculation. And of course, since many of the sighthounds originated around the same region, and they look similar, odds are that there's going to be overlap. Wow that ended up way longer than I thought. Oh well, once you get me started on sighthounds...lol