The Asyut Dog
Unknown · Ptolemaic or Roman period, first century BC to first century AD (attributed on style)
A large dog sits upright on its base, ears pricked, gazing straight ahead with the patience of an animal waiting for its master. Around its neck is a collar with a pendant and a little bell. The limestone was once painted, and traces of yellow and red ochre survive on the body. At just over a metre high the animal is life-size or larger, and the sculptor has given it a taut, watchful body rather than the stylised form of a divine jackal. Look at the delicate carving of the bell and the folds of skin at the neck.
The dog was found at Asyut in Middle Egypt during excavations in nineteen twenty-one and twenty-two. Asyut was the city of Wepwawet, the wolf or jackal god who opened the ways for the dead, and huge numbers of dogs were mummified and buried there. The statue, dated by its style to the late Ptolemaic or early Roman period, probably stood in a tomb or a sanctuary of the god. After passing through two dealers it was purchased by the Louvre in nineteen twenty-three.
Did You Know? The dog changed hands three times in a year: seen at a dealer's in June nineteen twenty-two, brought to the Louvre in July and finally bought from a second dealer the following winter.
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