Hello to all, sorry for my disappearance there for awhile but my husband and I were traveling. I am not one glued to their Smart Phone, so while we were abroad, I was living the experience fully and not seeing it through the lens of my iPhone or broadcasting to social media. Then after we returned home, we had to set off on yet another trip shortly after and then the holidays and on and on....

As I have been an archeology buff for most of my life, my husband and I took a once-in-a-lifetime journey to Egypt. This incredible trip was astonishing, stupendous, glorious, transporting us back to the time of the ancients. Touring for eight straight days, along with a fabulous four-day Nile River Cruise, we visited nearly all of Upper and Lower Egypt's miraculous monuments and artifacts that left us speechless. Jaw-dropping sights as we toured the country with our private Egyptologists as we found ourselves exhausting the use of the same familiar adjectives, over and over again in an effort to describe the experience.

However, on a related and exciting topic, many academic, longtime students of purebred dogs who have not had the opportunity to travel back in time to antiquity will marvel at the following photos. The statuette I saw in the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, and the carvings and color renderings of the ancient Saluki and Pharaoh Hounds in the Funerary Complex of Djoser at Saqqara are extraordinary. Especially since the drawings or paintings date back to the Second Dynasty, long before the Giza Pyramids. The renderings (paintings) are spectacular depicting daily life in the Delta, trade relations with the other African countries, and the Saluki and Pharaoh Hounds were prominently depicted with great reverence. It is marvelous to observe how little their type and shape have changed over these thousands of years. That is, of course, as long as modern breeders are not arrogant enough to believe that they can improve upon such noble breeds -- because they simply cannot. Look at these examples as they are magical. As our Egyptologist explained, the Pharaoh Hound was portrayed with a larger forechest, brisket than the Saluki though, understandably, for many people it is very difficult to discern between the two breeds shown on these walls.