THE TRIBE OF THE DOG

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1066, 2 September 1930, Page 14

THE TRIBE OF THE DOG

PROFESSOR FLINDERS PETRIE AND CALEB THE SPY REMARKABLE DISCOVERY This year marks the half-century of Professor Sir Flinders Petrie’s Egyptian researches, which he is now following up in Palestine (says a London paper). His work there has filled important gaps in Egyptian history, bringing to light scarabs which cover the whole period of the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings. Two miles from BethPelet, the main site of excavation, on the border-land in the south, the remains of an exceedingly early settlement were unearthed. Among flint implements of a rude and elementary kind were a number of clay-dogs considered to be examples of the tribe’s totem.

This is a very remarkable discovery when considered in conjunction with the story of the Exodus. We read in the Book of Numbers (XIII., v. 2) that when the Israejites were in sight of the Promised Land, a man from every tribes was to be sent to spy out the land and Caleb, the son of Jephunny, was sent as the representative of the tribe of Judah. The heads of the Kenezite tribe were called Caleb (dog) and the Professor concludes that Caleb, advancing to the south of Palestine, went to these his own tribesmen, who, hearing of the host of Israelites returning from Egypt, thought well to make common cause with them in order to attack and conquer the rest of the country further north. We know how only Caleb and Joshua brought favourable reports to Moses and how the other spies sought to deter the Israelites from advancing, terrifying them with tales of giants; of their disobedience and consequent wanderings for forty years, a year for every day that had been given for the spying of the land. This tribe of the dog totem, whose remains date from two or three thousand years before the return of the Israelites, may in all probability belong to the national primitive stock of the country. The result of the work done last season by the British School of Egyptian Archaeology is on view at University College. Among the scarabs is a ring of Merenptah, the Pharaoh of the Exodus, and other items of interest are sealings of wine-jars found together with the fragments of the jars in the Governor’s house at Beth-Pelet. The wine was stored in the room next to the bathroom, good wine, no doubt, for it bore the sign of a Syrian god on its sealing, and its vicinity to the bathroom bears testimony to the antiquity of ablutions with song!