Depictions of Dogs in the Beni Hasan Tombs
Dogs also had a mixed profile in Semitic culture. Although the dog was associated with Gula, a Mesopotamian goddess of healing, and may have been a protagonist in restorative and apotropaic rites, there is a great deal of textual evidence that dogs were scorned as curs, the bearers of uncleanness, and harbingers of misfortune (see the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, 8:68–73, under kalbu). The dog almost always has negative connotations in the biblical text (e.g., Exod 22:31, 1 Kgs 21:23, Qoh 9:4). The dog figured prominently in a Greek legend about the discovery of the dye for which Phoenicia was reknown. When Melqart, king and deity of Tyre, was walking along the beach with the nymph Tyros, their dog bit into a large whelk that stained its mouth purple. Melqart immediately seized upon dyeing cloth with the substance and a flourishing industry was born (McGovern 1990). Although this particular legend is Greek, it must have had wide currency, because a Tyrian coin commemorating the founding of the city depicts a dog and a murex shell (Meshorer 1983). This positive Phoenician view of dogs is countered by Persian claims that the Carthaginians reviled and ate them (Pompeius Trogus-Justin, Book XIX.i.10). However, this aspersion may be mere propaganda, since extensive excavations at Carthage have not turned up the remains of dogs as food animals.
Wapnish, Paula, and Brian Hesse. “Pampered Pooches or Plain Pariahs? The Ashkelon Dog Burials.” Biblical Archaeologist: Volume 56 1-4 2001 : 73. Print.
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