Dogs & Their Collars in Ancient Mesopotamia: Man’s Best Friend in the Ancient Near East
Among the many contributions to world culture credited to Mesopotamia is an object so familiar to people in the modern world that few pause to consider its origin: the dog collar. Throughout the ancient world, from China to Rome, dogs are depicted in works of art on a leash attached to a collar.
The dog collar was so integral an aspect of the people’s daily lives that even the dogs of the gods are seen in collar and leash; a relationship first evident in art from ancient Mesopotamia. In the same way that scholars debate the origin of the dog and its first domestication, it is difficult to say with certainty that the people of Mesopotamia were the first to invent the collar.
It is probable, even quite likely, that the collar – like people’s relationship with dogs themselves – developed independently in many different regions at different times. Even so, as far as the collar’s depiction in ancient art is concerned, the earliest come from Mesopotamia.
Dogs were greatly esteemed in Mesopotamia as protectors, healers, and companions of the gods. The healing goddess Gula was always depicted with a dog, as was Inanna, one of the most – if not the most – popular deities in the Mesopotamian pantheon. Images, amulets, statuary, and engravings of dogs were regularly produced for a variety of reasons, and in most of these, the dog is seen wearing a collar.
In the modern day, then, the simple act of a dog’s owner putting a collar and leash on his or her friend is a repetition of a practice going back thousands of years to another time and place. Although the dog collar of the present is made of different materials, the basic design remains unchanged and, it seems, the essential relationship between people and their dogs does as well.
This relationship is well established in Mesopotamia from as early as 3300 BCE in the southern area known as Sumer. Orientalist Samuel Noah Kramer, in his book History Begins at Sumer, examines 39 “firsts” in history from the region, among which are the first schools, the first proverbs and sayings, the first messiahs, the first Noah and the Flood stories, the first love song, the first aquarium, the first legal precedents in court cases, the first tale of a dying and resurrected god, the first funeral chants, first biblical parallels, and first moral ideas.
The Sumerians also essentially invented time in that their sexagesimal system of counting (a system based on the number 60) created the 60-second minute and the 60-minute hour. They also divided the night and day into periods of 12 hours, set a limit on a ‘work day’ with a time for beginning and ending, and established the concept of 'days off’ for holidays.
Although Kramer does not list the dog collar among his “firsts,” and there is no official record establishing the invention, it is evident from artistic and literary works that the Sumerians valued dogs and used collars quite early in their history.
Long before the famous Aesop of Greece (circa 620-564 BCE) wrote his fables, the Sumerians were already well-versed in the genre. Kramer points out how the dog is featured most prominently in these stories, writing, “the dog comes first, being referred to in some 83 proverbs and fables” (124). Aesop, in fact (or the unknown compiler we know by that name), probably collected earlier Greek and Sumerian fables rather than composing anything original himself.
Aesop’s fame rests entirely on the efforts of 15th-century printers to find material they could publish through the new invention of the printing press. The first English edition of Aesop’s Fables was brought out by William Caxton in 1484 to provide the public with inspiring reading material. The Sumerians had already accomplished this goal some 3,000 years earlier through stories such as Why the Dog is Subservient to Man and The Show Dog.
In the former story, a dog barks at a lion who is approaching a village and is struck by it while the fox cowers nearby pretending to be frightened. The fox slyly declares that, if one pretends to be humble and show fear, one can walk easily with lions. The dog in the story is the hero, however, because he shows his true intentions in protecting the people from the lion.
In The Show Dog, a purebred has puppies and complains to her mongrel friend that they will never win a prize because of their sire’s lineage. The mongrel responds, “Whether I have fawn-colored puppies or whether I have brindled ones, I love my young.” The show dog is thus presented as shallow in that she only values her puppies by the prestige they can bring her, while the mongrel, the common dog, loves her young unconditionally.
Many of the best-known fables attributed to Aesop are actually Sumerian in origin, including the famous maxim of the “dog in the manger” referring to someone who refuses to enjoy an experience but also will not allow any others to enjoy it. Although dog collars are not specifically mentioned in these fables, it is assumed they were in use – especially if there were dog shows as the above tale suggests – and they are clearly represented in art.
⇒ Dogs & Their Collars in Ancient Mesopotamia: Man’s Best Friend in the Ancient Near East
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