The Saluki is a standardised breed developed from sighthounds – dogs that hunt primarily by sight rather than a scent that was once used by nomadic tribes to run down game animals. The dog was originally bred in the Fertile Crescent. The modern breed is typically deep-chested and long-legged, and similar dogs appear in medieval and ancient art. The breed is most closely related to the Afghan hound, a basal breed that predates the emergence of modern breeds in the 19th century, and the Saluki has been purebred both in the Middle East, including by royalty, since at least that era, and in the West (especially in Britain and Germany) since the 1840s (with breed standards established in the West and the Middle East around the 1920s–1930s), though as a free-breeding landrace, similar dogs are common as feral animals in the Middle East. A related standardised breed is the north African Sloughi.

Name

The Saluki has also been called the gazelle hound, Arabian hound, and the Persian greyhound. One suggested origin of the breed’s name is ancient Sumerian salu-ki translating to ‘plunge-earth’. However, there is no evidence a breed existed then or was referred to by the Sumerians with this name, nor is it certain what “plunge [to/into] earth” might have meant about dogs. It is suggestive of digging for burrowing prey animals, but there is also a story of dogs being thrown toward quarry animals by a camel-mounted hunter.

The name used for the modern breed could be derived from Saluqiyyah (Arabic for “Seleucia”, a city now in Iraq), appearing in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. However, this is disputed. British diplomat Terence Clark wrote that the Arabic word saluqi indicates ‘person or thing from a place named Saluq’. Arab tradition states that Saluq was an ancient town in Yemen not far from modern Ta’izz, and the Arabs associate this town with the origin of the breed. However, the word saluqi might have been derived from reference to several other places: Saluq in Armenia, and three towns called Saluqiyah. One has become modern Silifke, Turkey; another is near Antioch (modern Antakya), Turkey; and third is located near Baghdad, Iraq. Baghdad eclipsed Ctesiphon, the capital of the Persian Empire, which was located some 30 km (19 mi) to the southeast. Ctesiphon itself had replaced and absorbed Seleucia, the first capital of the Seleucid Empire (312 BC – 65 AD).

Regardless, the adjective saluqi may have been derived by the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula from the similar-sounding word for Seleucid used in the Aramaic and Syriac languages spoken there by the various peoples of that part of Mesopotamia, but there is no irrefutable evidence.

History

The Saluki’s ancestors were historically bred in the Fertile Crescent, where agriculture originated. Images of running dogs with long, narrow bodies adorn pottery found in Susa, southwest Iran that dates back to 6,000 years ago, despite the depictions bearing erect, pointed ears. Dogs looking similar to Salukis are shown on wall carvings of the Sumerian empire (now Iraq), dating from 6,000 to 7,000 BC. The ancient skeletal remains of a dog identified as being of the greyhound/Saluki form were excavated at Tell Brak in modern Syria, and dated to approximately 4,000 years before present. Dogs that look similar to Salukis and Greyhounds were increasingly depicted on Egyptian tombs from the Middle Kingdom (2134 BC–1785 AD) onward, however, it was during the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt that Salukis-like dogs rose to prominence, replacing dogs called tesem (thought to be similar to modern pariah dogs or a generic term for a dog) in ancient Egyptian art. Their mummified bodies have been found buried with pharaohs. The variety spread southward into Sudan.

From Iran, such dogs are mentioned in the poetry of Khaghani (1121–1190), depicted in miniature paintings of hunting scenes along with horseback archers by Master Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād (1450–1535), depicted in book illustrations by ‘Abd al-Wahhab ibn ‘Abd al-Fattah ibn ‘Ali (1516).

The Silk Road was a trading route that stretched from ancient Iran to China. From China, examples of dogs that look like Salukis were painted by the fifth Ming Emperor Zhū Zhānjī, known more commonly as the Xuande Emperor during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). The inscription on the painting reads “playfully painted [by the] imperial brush” in 1427. Additional red seals were added in later years by owners of the painting, which also reveals that the painting was in the Imperial Chinese collection in the 18th century.

From Europe, the legend maintains that the returning crusaders brought the Saluki-type dogs from the Middle East. The painting of Henry IV, Duke of Saxony with his hunting dog, painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1514, shows a dog thought by some to represent an ancestral Saluki. The dog wears a collar decorated with a scallop shell, which is the badge of a pilgrim who has travelled the Way of Saint James in Spain. Saluki-type dogs appear in Paolo Veronese’s 1573 work The Adoration of the Magi (also known as the Adoration of the Kings), currently located at the National Gallery, London. Veronese painted such dogs in another two of his religious paintings: The Marriage at Cana and The Finding of Moses.

Sheik Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa, King of Bahrain during the 1930s, was known for a pack of Salukis that accompanied him throughout the Arab world on hunting trips. Following his death, his son Salman ibn Hamad Al Khalifa attempted to keep the lines pure-bred but they became interbred with other breeds. However, the pure-bred lines of the royal kennel were saved by the efforts of Dana Al Khalifa who was given two pure-bred puppies by the King, and about a decade later had pure-bred Salukis registered with the Kennel Club of Bahrain. Today, the breed is still held in high regard throughout the Middle East and were hunting dogs for nobles and rulers around the region. Although Muslims traditionally regarded dogs as unclean, they made an exception for the Saluki to live in the family tent. They are considered clean by the Bedouins and are allowed to be in women’s quarters, while other dogs must be kept outside. Saluki has never been sold, but it could be presented as a mark of honour to people.

In 2014, a DNA study compared dogs and wolves for AMY2B (alpha-amylase 2B), which is a gene and enzyme that assists with the first step in the digestion of dietary starch and glycogen. An expansion of this gene in dogs would enable early dogs to exploit a starch-rich diet as they fed on refuse from agriculture. Data indicated that the wolves and dingo had just two copies of the gene and the Siberian husky that is associated with hunter-gatherers had just 3–4 copies, “whereas the Saluki, which was historically bred in the Fertile Crescent where agriculture originated, has 29 copies”.