Page 30 - The Sloughi Review - Issue 6

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 3 0

Figure 1: Amaya © Th.Liedtke

THE CULTURE OF THE SLOUGHI
BY THOMAS LIEDTKE - GERMANY

Dedicated to my wonderful Amaya, who calls me to come coursing

The Sloughi, North Africa’s Sighthound, has For example, in Germany, A.C. Brendel in
existed for thousands of years. his wonderful history suspects that the
None of the many cultures have been able Sloughi originated from the vertragus (3),
to change its existence: as Ibn Khaldun (1) which came to North Africa with the
put it, the country shapes culture - be it Vandals**. Rüdiger Daub (4) suspected, as

Berber, Carthaginian, Roman, Vandal, Arab have others, that the Sloughi is a
(Bedouin), Turkish or French – and as descendant of the Saluki, possibly from
the culture persists, the Sloughi remains an Egypt, having been brought there at the
essential or even fundamental cultural time of Thutmosis III by the Bedouin Arabs,
element over millennia. and since the 7th century AD imported into
the rest of North Africa.

CYNOLOGICAL ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT
ITS ORIGIN SINCE THE 1970s The older Egyptian hunting dog, the prick-
eared version of the Tesem (5) is given a
Cynological (2) thoughts on the origin of more prominent place in this respect as it
the Sloughi since the 1970s have been many can be detected in the period preceding
and colourful, mainly due to the fact that the appearance of the Sloughi type: in the
the genealogical forefather of the dog, the depiction on the so- called Golenisheff

wolf, was not historically present in Africa Shell, of the Naqada I Amratian culture
in any form whatsoever*. Upper Egypt (6), of approximately 3600 to
3800 BC.