untold story: greyhound timeline

The modern greyhound is strikingly similar in appearance to an ancient breed of sighthounds that goes back to the Egyptians and Celts. Dogs very similar to greyhounds--domesticated hunters with long, slender bodies-- appear in temple drawings from 6,000 BC in the city of Catal-Huyuk in present-day Turkey. A 4,000 BC funerary vase found in the area of modern Iran was decorated with images of dogs looking much like greyhounds. Since ancient artists tended to depict only images of religious or social significance to their societies, these dogs must have been fairly important to the peoples of those days. We do not know for certain that these dogs are forerunners of the modern greyhound.
Where did the greyhound-type dog originate? The testimony of the ancients is confused on this point. Although the Greyhound appears in various Celtic, British, Irish, and Scottish pictures and literature dating from the 9th Century, its slender build, deep chest, and thin skin suggest a warm climate birth for the breed. The term "Greyhound" has been traced by some to the old English "Gre-hundr" grech or greg, meaning dog and hundr, meaning hunting. The Romans believed that greyhounds came from Gaul (western Europe), the land of the Celts. The Celts, on the other hand, believed that greyhounds came from Greece, and so called them "Greek hounds" (greyhound may in fact be a derivation of Greek hound). Still others prefer the simpler explanation -- the original color of the dogs was gray and the name simply means gray dog. This confusion suggests at least that greyhound-type dogs didn't originate in Gaul or Greece, but probably in the semi-arid lands of North Africa and the Middle East.
It may be that the ancestor of greyhounds and other sighthounds first came into being in the tents of Middle Eastern nomadic peoples. Some think that the sighthound is a cross between the domesticated dog of that era and the southern European wolf. In a movable camp setting, it was common for dogs to follow the camp, eating from its trash and protecting its unwalled perimeter. The presence of these dogs was tolerated because of the guard service they provided. But they were regarded as wild and disagreeable by people, a belief to which most references to dogs in the Bible testify. But at some point, a special kind of dog was discovered or bred--a dog that could hunt along with humans, even humans on horseback-- an extremely valuable service. These dogs had to be kept separate from the dogs on the camp's perimeter, so that interbreeding wouldn't ruin the special abilities of these proto-greyhounds. So these sighthounds were given a special place inside the camp, even inside the tents, where no other animal was allowed, so that their breeding might be controlled. The unique and highly prized abilities of sighthounds help explain why they have changed very little in 2,000 years. 


This information should help with the formatting of my book and which places to put first and behind.