Baboons or Police Dogs

According to ancient records, baboons were kept as "police dogs" by authorities, led on leashes and used to help catch suspects. On an Old Kingdom tomb a police baboon is shown helping to arrest a fleeing thief in the village market by seizing his leg.

the tombs at saqqara

Baboons were very popular in ancient Egypt, and were sometimes kept as pets.It was only the gentle female baboons that were kept as pets, as male baboons are notoriously aggressive and bad-tempered (in fact, the image of a male baboon with a raised tail serves as the hieroglyph for “enraged.”)
It was thought that baboons were the first creatures to pay proper religious observances.There was a belief that the most learned Egyptian priests understood the secret language of baboons

baboons

Thought by the Egyptians to be both a lunar and a solar animal, it was observed that baboons “sang” to the moon at night, and taken as a sign of worship. The Egyptians also observed baboons barking at the rising sun, which gave rise to a favorite theme in sculpture, paintings, and reliefs, of a baboon worshiping the sun with raised hands.

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