Dog as God and Psychopomp in Dream Archaeology

 

A small example from my journals of one mode of dream archaeology: following clues from a dream to an ancient culture and turning up evidence or documentation for something that was previously unknown or  incompletely known. It may also be an example of dream precognition:  

May 8, 2022

Dream  

Power of the Dog in Dream Archaeology 

I'm excited by essays and materials I find in what at first seems to be a big white-bound bound volume. They include maps and charts and line drawings on an archaeology theme: The Dog. I reflect on related sources I have available to go further on this theme in my own research and writing, including Barry Lopez's fine work Of Wolves and Men.

Later I am out in the woods with a man who lives close to wolves. He leads the way off the main path to the right. He says the wolves are out, moving clockwise. It seems to be his plan to meet them face to face. I notice he hasn't brought his rifle. I'm willing to trust that he knows what he's doing and that if we meet the wolves face to face it will be a sociable encounter.

 

Where Dog=God and Psychopomp

After recording my, I opened my email and found my daily pdf from an academic website, a paper on canine burials at Saqqara during the Graeco-Roman period.. [*] It describes the mass burial and mummification of dogs in ancient Egypt, 1,350 at this site alone, tens of thousands at Abydos.

The authors suggest that the primary reason for canine burial here was to provide an organic embodiment of Anubis in his role as psychopomp, guiding souls between this world and the afterlife. The dog buried beside or near humans becomes "an amuletic animal mummy... considered to be either an adequate replacement for, or a valuable complement to the Anubis amulet to ensure the continuing and unbroken assistance of Anubis for the deceased."

The article contains maps and charts and line drawings including one of a 2nd century funerary stele from Terenouthis (Kom Abu Bellou), where the deceased is seen in the company of a dog and a falcon, aspects of Anubis and Horus.

So my dream of the archaeology of the dog seems to be a minor example of precognition or clairvoyance. The incoming email enabled me to fulfill part of my dream research assignment right away. I would probably not have made time to read that scholarly article without the dream; I had a few other reading assignments. 

It is interesting to reflect on where the wolves are circling. Their presence off-stage in that part of my the dream leads me to reflect on the evolution of the human-canine connection, In the Egyptian context, it may be relevant that Anubis and his two jackal-headed brothers, Wepwawet and Duamutef, are especially associated with wild canids. 

In one of my big dreams of Egypt twenty years earlier, my two beloved black dogs (both deceased) came out of a hollow tree, dripping with what looked like amniotic fluid and might have been resin or honey. They guided me through the pylon gate of an Egyptian temple that was both ancient and newly constructed. A beautiful cupbearer gave me wine infused with blue lotus. In an inner chamber I received profound revelations about soul and self that are indelible. Recalling my guides, the two black dogs, I think of how in some funerary stelae from Egypt, like one in the picture above, twin canids share the role of psychopomp. 

[*] Mary Hartley, Alanah Buck, Susanne Binder, "Canine Interments in the Teti Cemetery North at Saqqara during the Graeco-Roman period" in Miroslav Bárta, Filip Coppens and Jaromír Krejãí (eds) Abusir and Saqqara in the year 2010/1 (Prague: Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University, 2011) 17-29.

Photo: Funerary stela of Kopres. Roman Period, late 2nd century from Terenouthis. University of Michigan Excavations, 1935