Abutiu

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Abutiu in hieroglyphics
D36 D58 G43 G4

Abutiu
(Abu tiu)
ˁbw tjw

The ancient Egyptian dog Abutiu (often quoted in the English transcription Abuwtiyuw ) was one of the earliest domestic animals whose name has been passed down.

The dog, who lived in the 5th or 6th dynasty (2504–2216 BC), received a ceremonial burial in a separate grave in the necropolis of Giza after his death on the orders of the then ruling pharaoh . It is not known which Pharaoh was involved.

Find situation

Neither the dog's grave nor the dog's mummy have survived. The Egyptologist George A. Reisner suspects that Abutiu was not the Pharaoh's dog, but belonged to one of his servants, who had risen in the king's favor through Abutiu. The dog is known for a plaque that presumably comes from the grave chapel of the owner of the dog Abutiu, but which, like the dog grave itself, is no longer verifiable. This inscription plaque represents the only source on Abutiu and is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo under the inventory number JE 67573 .

The stone with this inscription was apparently installed as a spoil in another grave ( Mastaba G 2188) from the 6th Dynasty after the destruction of the burial chapel and was found in 1936 during investigations by George A. Reisner.

Due to the material and the craftsmanship, the inscription block can be dated to the 5th or 6th dynasty.

Funerary chapel text

The stone with the inscription is made of white limestone and measures 54.2 cm × 28.2 cm × 23.2 cm. The inscription consists of ten vertical rows of hieroglyphics, separated from each other by vertical lines. Part of a leash can be seen in the upper right corner, suggesting that the plaque was originally part of a representation of Abutiu and his owner.

The text describes what gifts the Pharaoh contributed to Abutius' funeral:

Translation according to Reisner

“ The dog who was his majesty's guardian, Abutiu is his name. His Majesty ordered that he be buried [ceremonial], that a coffin be given to him from the royal treasury, fine linen in great quantity, [and] incense. His Majesty [also] gave him perfumed oils and [ordered] that a tomb be built for him by the mason teams. His Majesty did this so that he [the dog] might be honored [before the great god Anubis]. "

With the burial ordered by the Pharaoh, Abutiu was granted an honor that normally only people of higher rank received. The gifts of the Pharaoh for the burial of the dog indicate that the corpse was subjected to a mummification , as was also common for a human dead at that time. The ceremonial burial was intended to enable the dog's ka to enter the afterlife.

Illustration of a dog of the Tjesem type on the dog stele from the grave of Antef II around 2065 BC. Chr.

Notes on appearance

Even if no illustration of Abutius has been preserved, the text can be used to identify a certain type of dog. The text refers to him as Ṯsm ( Tjesem ), which stands for a light, greyhound-like hunting dog with erect ears and a curly tail. This type of dog is already known in pictures from predynastic times and is therefore one of the oldest known dog types. Representations of Tjesem dogs are common in all periods of ancient Egyptian history.

Name meaning

The name itself cannot be clearly translated, but Reisner suspects that the name component bw (“bu”) onomatopoeically describes the barking of the dog, as this name component is found several times in ancient Egyptian dog names. Jozef Janssen is considering the possibility that the name can also be read as ' bw3 , which is also known as a personal name.

literature

  • George A. Reisner : The Dog which was honored by the King of Upper and Lower Egypt. in Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts , Boston 34, No. 206 (December 1936), pp. 96-99. ( PDF )
  • Eveline Zahradnik: The dog as a beloved pet in ancient Egypt on the basis of pictorial, written and archaeological sources: Old and Middle Kingdom. book-on-demand.de, 2009, ISBN 3-86805-408-1 , pp. 206-208

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eveline Zahradnik: The dog as a beloved pet in ancient Egypt. P. 206
  2. ^ A b c George A. Reisner: The Dog which was honored by the King of Upper and Lower Egypt. P. 96
  3. ^ George A. Reisner: The Dog which was honored by the King of Upper and Lower Egypt. Pp. 97, 98
  4. ^ George A. Reisner: The Dog which was honored by the King of Upper and Lower Egypt. P. 98
  5. ^ George A. Reisner: The Dog which was honored by the King of Upper and Lower Egypt. Pp. 96, 97
  6. ^ George A. Reisner: The Dog which was honored by the King of Upper and Lower Egypt. P. 97
  7. ^ A b c George A. Reisner: The Dog which was honored by the King of Upper and Lower Egypt. P. 99
  8. ↑ Jozef Janssen: About dog names in pharaonic Egypt in communications from the German archaeological institute, Cairo department , Volume 16 (1958), p. 177