A KING AND HIS DOG

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 105, 5 May 1937, Page 13

A KING AND HIS DOG

p' the Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arte of Boston appears a monograph by Dr. George Reisner, the wellknown archaeologist, which tells the •tory of the dog whose service was rewarded by the King of his day. In the great cemetery, west of the Pyramid of Cheops at Giza, four groups of large mastaba-tomhs were laid out in regular streets and cross ■treets, and used for princes and princesses of the royal family and for officials and servant* of the Court. Among the ruastabas, near the northwest corner of the Pyramid of Cheops, ia a small mastaba, inserted probably late in Dynasty VI. (B.C. 2600-2450). and one of the lining blabs of a burial chamber built in the filling of the mastaba is an inscribed 6tone taken from gn old chapel and here re-used. The block of white limestone bore 10 werticaJ lines of incised inscription separated and bounded on right and left by incised vertical lines. Diagonally across the top right-hand corner ran a bar in relief which may have been part of a staff held in a sloping position or part of a leash attached to the collar of a dog. The inscription translated runs as follows: The god which was tne guard of his Majesty. Abuwtiyuw is his name- His Majesty ordered that he be buried ceiemonially, that he be given a coffin from the royal treasury, tine linen in great quantity, and incense. ilia Majesty gave perfume ointment, and ordered that a tomb be built for him by gangs of masons- His Majesty did this in order that the dog might be honoured before the great god Anubis. Dr. lleisner interprets the facts and Words as follows : “The inscription was a wall-scene in a chapel of an unknown man at Giza, ft scene in which the chief figure was the owner accompanied oy the dog Abuwtiyuw. 4 The dog belonged to this owner, not to the King. The owner must have , been attached to the person of the <

An “Honoured Spirit”

King in some capacity, gardener, huntsman, or bodyguard. On service - he was accompanied by his dog, who > attracted the attention of the King and became a favourite of His Majesty. “Probably, after the habit of Egypi tian dogs Abuwtiyuw threatened, barking or snapping, every stranger person who approached the king and was call ed half in jest “the bodyguard of Hia Majesty.’ As in the case of other Egyptian nobles, the dog was in constant attendance, a daily fact in the life of the King, and, when he died, the King ordered that he be buried ceremonially in a tomb of his own, in order that, like human beings buried in this way, his ‘KA’ might enter the afterlife as an honoured spirit before the Great God. “Thus, in the other world after death his future existence might be assured to continue his attendance on His Majesty together with his master. When the unknown owner decorated his chapel he had himself depicted with the dog, which had brought him the favour of the King, and over the dog he had inscribed the remarkable honour conterred on the dog by His Majesty.” The dog, and particularly the hunting dog or greyhound, to which breed Abuwtiyuw belonged, played an intimate part in the daily life of the kings and nobles of all period’s m Ancient Egypt. It is, therefore,' not surprising to find that animal frequently depicted in the reliefs carved on the chapel walls of these menThe new inscription now found records tor the first time a dog so favoured by the Kf-jg of the land that His Majesty ordered a ceremonial interment like that of a human being. Ail this was done in order that the dog might become an honouring soul before the Great God of the living death. It must b© emphasised that he was not to become a man, but his “KA,’> as a dog was to be treated with the flavour and affection which he had received on earth from the King and his owner.