History of saluki, afghan, greyhound dogs
The Saluki Club of America had this to say:
"The Saluki, the Royal Dog of Egypt, is perhaps the oldest known breed of domesticated dog, a distinct breed and type as long ago as 329 B.C., when Alexander the Great invaded India. The Saluki is claimed to be as old as the earliest known civilization, the claim being made that the hounds shown on the earliest carvings look more like the Saluki than any breed (a greyhound body, with feathered ears, tail and legs).
"Exactly the same hound appears on the Egyptian tombs, 2100 B.C., and more recent excavations of the still older Sumerian Empire, estimated at 7000-6000 B.C., have produced carvings of striking resemblance to the Saluki.
"Whenever one sees the word 'dog' in the Bible, it means Saluki."
Concerning the Afghan, an article without authorship line, states:
"It was near Jebel Musa, or the Mountains of Moses, between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Akaba, that the breed now known as the Afghan hound first became a recognizable type of dog. This spot, long held sacred by the Jews and Christians alike—where Moses delivered the Ten Commandments, was a part of Ancient Egypt at the time when the Afghan's existence was first mentioned on papyrus.
"The document that thus forms the cornerstone of the history of the Afghan hound has been attributed to the period 4000-3000 B.C., and it mentions a dog so many times there can be little doubt.
"According to Major H. Blackstone, an English authority who made the translation, the dog is referred to as Cynocephalus, which may be literally translated as baboon or freely translated as monkey-faced hound. The illustrations of the dogs found on the tombs of the time offer convincing proof that even the Afghan hound's head was suggestive of a baboon."
Discussing the Greyhound, which has a body like the Saluki, but does not have the Saluki's feathered ears, tail or legs, another unidentified author says:
"The first knowledge of the Greyhound comes in the Tomb of Amten, in the valley of the Nile, regarded by Egyptologists as belonging to the Fourth Dynasty, which in modern chronology would be between 4000 and 3000 B.C. The carvings of this tomb show dogs of unmistakable Greyhound type in the separate scenes. The dogs have ring tails.
"While the old Egyptian scenes establish the Greyhound as a recognizable type at a very early date, the first complete description of this breed was written by Ovid, who lived from 63 B.C. to 17 A.D. Reading this, one can have little doubt that the dog of ancient times is the same as the dog of today."
The Norwegian Elkhound Association contributed this to the volume:
"In Vista Cave at Jaeren, in Western Norway, a Norwegian Elkhound's skeleton was uncovered among the stone implements in a stratum dating back to 5000-4000 B.C."
