Tesem

From a nineteenth-century transcription of Egyptian ṯzm (“hound”).

Tesem (plural Tesems)

1. An extinct kind of dog from Ancient Egypt resembling a greyhound
   • 1933, Henry Devenish Skinner, “Origin and Relationships of the Polynesian Dog”, in The Journal of the Polynesian Society, volume 42, number 1, page 18:

     We possess many illustrations of these Tesem greyhounds from the whole period of the Egyptian supremacy, some 3,000 years, and much care must have been taken to keep them pure-bred.

   • 1984, Patricia Sylvester, The Reader’s Digest Illustrated Book of Dogs, page 225:

     Greyhounds, one of the oldest known groups of dogs, share a common ancestor — the Tesem.

   • 2002, Johan Gallant, The Story of the African Dog, page 65:

     The Egyptians had inherited the Tesem as a sleek sight hound breed that had been derived from early domesticated dogs in Southwest Asia.

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