whilst it doesn't have a downward curved snout, my first thought on hearing the description of the salawa was that it was a striped hyena, minus the long fur. If the animal was only glimpsed, running, it could easily fall prey to mis-identification. The size could also be an accidental exaggeration, too: I'm always surprised how big common blackbirds appear when I see them in the garden. Mind you, this doesn't excuse mistaking a fennec fox for something as big as a salawa: the size difference is just too great. Thank you for making this video, Dr Polaris. Outside of Stargate SG-1 and its (in)famous Jaffa joke, I knew nothing of this creature other than its general depiction in Ancient Egyptian art and that it most often is referred to as the 'seth- animal'. Once ore you have broadened my knowledge always much appreciated.
Thanks for your detailed reply! This cryptid was really just an excuse for me to talk about Egyptian mythology for a change. The Salawa sights are clearly just misidentified Hyenas, jackals or domestic dogs with mange.
Glad i found this, dare i say it, underrated channel. RUclips recommendations doing their job for once. Subbed, keep it up, fairly interesting to hear about the more "colorfull" side of animal sightings.
The Set animal is an aardvark. Dog donkey ears, stiff tail, a snooted snout. Set probably accumulated connections with Anpw and Wepwawet owing to all three of them being deities of war, death, and power, leading Set's animal to become more canine in depictions. (The aardvark becoming extinct in lower Egypt due to lethal deliciousness might have had something to do with this as well)
During the Roman Empire, at least three legions are known to have had a boar as their emblems - Legio I Italica, Legio X Fretensis and Legio XX Valeria Victrix.
@@fabianhale845 Aardvark ears actually have a sort of trapezoidal shape, and can appear to be somewhat squared-off in full profile. Also let's remember the Egyptians were making stylistic depictions of deific totem-animals, not perfectly-accurate zoological records. Jackals for instance look nothing like depictions of Anpw and yet, he is certainly associated with jackals.
The Sha being believed by to have been a depiction of a saluki dog with cropped ears makes sense. Early depictions of the Sha had a tufted tail, rather than a split tail, and in early myths, before his demonization, Set was considered to be Ra's guardian, protecting him during his journey through the Underworld. Thus a relation to dogs, which are regarded as loyal companions, wouldn't be out of the ordinary.
Probably a large feral dog, coupled with a superstitious populace in the small villages, hey presto, canine cryptid. Another excellent, well researched video. Keep them coming Doc
I recently found your channel via EDGE's paleo rewind and I've been binging a lot of your videos! So when I popped this one on to listen to in the bg I was just going to also enjoy it... and then I almost spat my water out because at 00:38 or around there is one of my old old old sketches of a Typhonic/Set beast from deviantArt! Very pleasant surprise XD
"A Serpent Guard, a Horus Guard and a Setesh Guard meet on a neutral planet. It is a tense moment. The Serpent Guard's eyes glow, the Horus Guard's beak glistens, the Setesh Guard's... nose drips." ―Teal'c, telling a joke about the Setesh Guard. (Stargate SG1, s3ep02 "Seth")
The Egyptian Pharaoh hound is the national dog of Malta. It is thought to be a Lost Breed of hound from the Middle East. In Malta they call it the rabbit dog. The way it got to the island of Malta is through trading with the Middle East
Fyi, and maybe this is obvious, but at 06:15 the dog pictured is actually a Russian _Borzoi_ …and the dog after that (at 06:20) is a Pharaoh hound, not Salukis. But still, they’re all more or less related as they’re all breeds of sight-hound, used for coursing, hunting, racing, etc-and Pharaoh hounds are clearly an ancient Egyptian breed, as well. Greyhounds are sort of the “basal” sight hound breed that ties them all together, in my mind at least, along with other breeds like the Afghan, the Ibizan hound, and even the Whippet and Italian greyhound.
Dr. Polaris is a truly amazing voice on RUclips. Parallel to his very well researched videos on paleontology, which use the latest developments in taxonomy, and go into detail about often obscure extinct groups, he takes an equally exhaustive and objective approach to cryptozoology. Almost as if he had a genuine interest in eventually finding out an actual, new animal taxon! Very intriguing. On one hand, it is refreshing to hear a reasonable voice on a topic which is marred by wild, sometimes ridiculous speculations against all evidence by Cuckoo's all across the spectrum Dr. Polaris is a serious cryptozoologist, if I may say, a rare species in itself 😊. I keep wondering about his passion, as it contrasts so much with his rigorous treatment of paleontological topics. I lent a curious ear to a couple of his cryptozoological videos, but I much prefer those that deal with actual fossils. Still. I salute his intriguing dedication to the less traveled paths 😊.
Good video. One little point, though. Nut is the mother of both Sutekh and Nepthys. Wife of Geb ,granddaughter of Ra,goddess of the Heavens,Consort of the Earth. Anubis,while indeed considered a son of Set by some,is thought by others to be the son of Osiris, and the indirect cause of his tragic murder through the discovery of his nature as an illegitimate son. Older sources simply claim him to be the son of Ra,original ruler of the Underworld,and one of the oldest members of the pantheon.
Perhaps wolves that used to exist in Northern Africa were an inspiration. The Egyptian civilization rose out of the end of the Younger Dryas, Green Sahara. The people that once were spread throughout the Sahara congregated around the last water sources and brought with them stories and religion. The probably lived in the mountains of Egypt when they were wetter and likely forested and Ethiopia had the only African wolves to survive into modern times. Also in modern times wolves could be found in the Levant as well as the Negev Desert
Excellent work on the Salawa my friend. Also it has some names like the Typhonian or Typhonic Beast, Set Animal, and the Setite Beast (Which I gotta name for myself).
My sketchy knowledge of Arabic suggests the name salawa is meant to invoke sila or su'luwwa which is a malevolent Djinn in Arabian mythology. There is some overlap in the stories as the sila has shapeshifting qualities as some of the more sensationalized accounts of this animal claimed.
The issue about the donkey being the "inspirational creature" for set is that in a historical context, that time period made use of donkeys as a form of mockery. Whenever an old cult gets displaced or a new cult is mocked by the status quo, the party receiving the mockery have their patron deity given the head of a donkey. Jesus was portrayed with a donkey head by Romans during the time when Rome discriminated against Christians. I highly doubt a donkey is the inspiration for Set. Most likely it's either an African Wild Dog, or a breed of dog with body modifications (like done to that of pit bulls and dobermans) that has long gone extinct, or an aardvark.
Tasmanian tiger. The foreign imported animal would only add to the chaos element and would have been a status symbol for saying they had one in the royal kennel
Thanks, Dr. Polaris, for this fascinating video! You certainly do know a lot about Egypt! I never realized that polar bears were such devoted scholars of world religions and ancient civilizations before! Best of luck with all of your future studies. (I'm really sorry about the diminishing ice caps. Humans are so selfish and destructive that it makes me ashamed to be one.) --N
The Salawa just looks like a pokemon, or a jackal, would it not just be a case of unusually large & deformed Jackals that are starving due to their deformation & therefore rely on preying on smaller animals & attacking people near farms.
Or maybe a hybrid between a Saluki dog & a Jackal, or just a deformed Saluki that was abandoned or became a stray. They're quite tall dogs & humans aren't the best at judging size at a distance, especially if its a farmer not a trained hunter or spotter. I like to believe in cryptids but if there's a more plausible explanation I tend to stay with it until the cryptid has enough proof behind it. Like I believe in bigfoot, but not as the myth calls it. In Africa gorilla's were once a creature of myth & it wasn't until extensive colonisation was already being done that they were discovered to be real. Apes could easily hide in America.
Considering that cops see Black children as eight-foot charging monsters, it's hardly surprising that some random people might mistake a small fox as a scary cryptid...
I noticed that as well. Makes me wonder how much of the rest of his content is just the same. Such a shame because I was enjoying it, but I think I'm done now.
whilst it doesn't have a downward curved snout, my first thought on hearing the description of the salawa was that it was a striped hyena, minus the long fur. If the animal was only glimpsed, running, it could easily fall prey to mis-identification. The size could also be an accidental exaggeration, too: I'm always surprised how big common blackbirds appear when I see them in the garden. Mind you, this doesn't excuse mistaking a fennec fox for something as big as a salawa: the size difference is just too great. Thank you for making this video, Dr Polaris. Outside of Stargate SG-1 and its (in)famous Jaffa joke, I knew nothing of this creature other than its general depiction in Ancient Egyptian art and that it most often is referred to as the 'seth- animal'. Once ore you have broadened my knowledge always much appreciated.
Thanks for your detailed reply! This cryptid was really just an excuse for me to talk about Egyptian mythology for a change. The Salawa sights are clearly just misidentified Hyenas, jackals or domestic dogs with mange.
I LOVE STARGATE!!!! That episode was, I believe, the only one where we see Teal'c actually laugh 😂
@@miss.scales7159 spoilers: salawa is just a kangaroo that swam from Australia to Egypt
Glad i found this, dare i say it, underrated channel.
RUclips recommendations doing their job for once.
Subbed, keep it up, fairly interesting to hear about the more "colorfull" side of animal sightings.
Thank you so much!
The Set animal is an aardvark. Dog donkey ears, stiff tail, a snooted snout. Set probably accumulated connections with Anpw and Wepwawet owing to all three of them being deities of war, death, and power, leading Set's animal to become more canine in depictions. (The aardvark becoming extinct in lower Egypt due to lethal deliciousness might have had something to do with this as well)
During the Roman Empire, at least three legions are known to have had a boar as their emblems - Legio I Italica, Legio X Fretensis and Legio XX Valeria Victrix.
If that’s the case then why does the Set creature have rectangular ears unlike actual aardvarks?
@@fabianhale845 Aardvark ears actually have a sort of trapezoidal shape, and can appear to be somewhat squared-off in full profile. Also let's remember the Egyptians were making stylistic depictions of deific totem-animals, not perfectly-accurate zoological records. Jackals for instance look nothing like depictions of Anpw and yet, he is certainly associated with jackals.
The Sha being believed by to have been a depiction of a saluki dog with cropped ears makes sense. Early depictions of the Sha had a tufted tail, rather than a split tail, and in early myths, before his demonization, Set was considered to be Ra's guardian, protecting him during his journey through the Underworld. Thus a relation to dogs, which are regarded as loyal companions, wouldn't be out of the ordinary.
Ooooh, looks like you’ve graduated from just cryptids if the Congo, to cryptids of Africa!
Nice job dude!
Thanks! The remaining Congo cryptids are simply too ridiculous even for my channel.
Dr. Polaris good thing there are more cryptids found in Africa. One day you will graduate to the cryptids of the old world!
I knew I've heard that music before, that's the Arabian Nights theme from Wario Land 4! That takes me back
Probably a large feral dog, coupled with a superstitious populace in the small villages, hey presto, canine cryptid. Another excellent, well researched video.
Keep them coming Doc
Hope you enjoyed your vacation/holiday
I recently found your channel via EDGE's paleo rewind and I've been binging a lot of your videos! So when I popped this one on to listen to in the bg I was just going to also enjoy it... and then I almost spat my water out because at 00:38 or around there is one of my old old old sketches of a Typhonic/Set beast from deviantArt! Very pleasant surprise XD
"A Serpent Guard, a Horus Guard and a Setesh Guard meet on a neutral planet. It is a tense moment. The Serpent Guard's eyes glow, the Horus Guard's beak glistens, the Setesh Guard's... nose drips."
―Teal'c, telling a joke about the Setesh Guard. (Stargate SG1, s3ep02 "Seth")
Who's that Pokémon?
It's Umbreon!
Wouldn't it be most likely to be like another version of a hell hound? Like the Egyptian Cujo
Yare yare daze.
@Redwood Rebelgirl it's a reference.
The Egyptian Pharaoh hound is the national dog of Malta. It is thought to be a Lost Breed of hound from the Middle East. In Malta they call it the rabbit dog. The way it got to the island of Malta is through trading with the Middle East
Fyi, and maybe this is obvious, but at 06:15 the dog pictured is actually a Russian _Borzoi_ …and the dog after that (at 06:20) is a Pharaoh hound, not Salukis. But still, they’re all more or less related as they’re all breeds of sight-hound, used for coursing, hunting, racing, etc-and Pharaoh hounds are clearly an ancient Egyptian breed, as well. Greyhounds are sort of the “basal” sight hound breed that ties them all together, in my mind at least, along with other breeds like the Afghan, the Ibizan hound, and even the Whippet and Italian greyhound.
cryptids in the past: black dog
cryptids in the 1900s: new animal, looks a lil weird.
cryptids now: a 12 foot long lion hat lives on the British Isles
I peeped the pharaoh hound and Borzoi in the video 😅🤣 nice video though.
2:30 "Umbreon, I choose you!!!"
I love this channel
Dr. Polaris is a truly amazing voice on RUclips. Parallel to his very well researched videos on paleontology, which use the latest developments in taxonomy, and go into detail about often obscure extinct groups, he takes an equally exhaustive and objective approach to cryptozoology. Almost as if he had a genuine interest in eventually finding out an actual, new animal taxon! Very intriguing. On one hand, it is refreshing to hear a reasonable voice on a topic which is marred by wild, sometimes ridiculous speculations against all evidence by Cuckoo's all across the spectrum
Dr. Polaris is a serious cryptozoologist, if I may say, a rare species in itself 😊. I keep wondering about his passion, as it contrasts so much with his rigorous treatment of paleontological topics.
I lent a curious ear to a couple of his cryptozoological videos, but I much prefer those that deal with actual fossils. Still. I salute his intriguing dedication to the less traveled paths 😊.
Good video.
One little point, though. Nut is the mother of both Sutekh and Nepthys. Wife of Geb ,granddaughter of Ra,goddess of the Heavens,Consort of the Earth. Anubis,while indeed considered a son of Set by some,is thought by others to be the son of Osiris, and the indirect cause of his tragic murder through the discovery of his nature as an illegitimate son. Older sources simply claim him to be the son of Ra,original ruler of the Underworld,and one of the oldest members of the pantheon.
Perhaps wolves that used to exist in Northern Africa were an inspiration. The Egyptian civilization rose out of the end of the Younger Dryas, Green Sahara. The people that once were spread throughout the Sahara congregated around the last water sources and brought with them stories and religion. The probably lived in the mountains of Egypt when they were wetter and likely forested and Ethiopia had the only African wolves to survive into modern times. Also in modern times wolves could be found in the Levant as well as the Negev Desert
Wolf still live in north africa
@@MotivateMoments2023 maybe salawa was fennec fox with rabies
Always did like the Set Beast.
Excellent work on the Salawa my friend. Also it has some names like the Typhonian or Typhonic Beast, Set Animal, and the Setite Beast (Which I gotta name for myself).
My sketchy knowledge of Arabic suggests the name salawa is meant to invoke sila or su'luwwa which is a malevolent Djinn in Arabian mythology. There is some overlap in the stories as the sila has shapeshifting qualities as some of the more sensationalized accounts of this animal claimed.
The issue about the donkey being the "inspirational creature" for set is that in a historical context, that time period made use of donkeys as a form of mockery. Whenever an old cult gets displaced or a new cult is mocked by the status quo, the party receiving the mockery have their patron deity given the head of a donkey. Jesus was portrayed with a donkey head by Romans during the time when Rome discriminated against Christians. I highly doubt a donkey is the inspiration for Set. Most likely it's either an African Wild Dog, or a breed of dog with body modifications (like done to that of pit bulls and dobermans) that has long gone extinct, or an aardvark.
Or a striped hyena
Eevee plus a dark stone much?
Tasmanian tiger. The foreign imported animal would only add to the chaos element and would have been a status symbol for saying they had one in the royal kennel
Thanks, Dr. Polaris, for this fascinating video! You certainly do know a lot about Egypt! I never realized that polar bears were such devoted scholars of world religions and ancient civilizations before! Best of luck with all of your future studies. (I'm really sorry about the diminishing ice caps. Humans are so selfish and destructive that it makes me ashamed to be one.) --N
Must be a taller than average feral black grey hound.
The Salawa just looks like a pokemon, or a jackal, would it not just be a case of unusually large & deformed Jackals that are starving due to their deformation & therefore rely on preying on smaller animals & attacking people near farms.
Or maybe a hybrid between a Saluki dog & a Jackal, or just a deformed Saluki that was abandoned or became a stray. They're quite tall dogs & humans aren't the best at judging size at a distance, especially if its a farmer not a trained hunter or spotter. I like to believe in cryptids but if there's a more plausible explanation I tend to stay with it until the cryptid has enough proof behind it. Like I believe in bigfoot, but not as the myth calls it. In Africa gorilla's were once a creature of myth & it wasn't until extensive colonisation was already being done that they were discovered to be real. Apes could easily hide in America.
@Redwood Rebelgirl they are bears 🐻
@@ryanbright1363 as for the fennec fox maybe it had rabies
Enjoy your holidays. -Nauthiz-
Jackal or similar with mange?
Similar to the texan "chupacabra" that turned out to be a mangy coyote cross?
The thumbnail picture reminds me of the Mexican hairless dog, common name "Xolo". I'm sure it was not alone in it's dramatic appearance.
It is not unlike a slender dogman or even Anubis.
The oldest written sentence mentions Set
My money is definitely on the Saluki dog...
Bad dog! Sit!
Considering that cops see Black children as eight-foot charging monsters, it's hardly surprising that some random people might mistake a small fox as a scary cryptid...
The boar is an ancient symbol of war and power in europe, which is foreign to egypt
I believe that they are greyhounds cuz they are very chaotic
It would be interesting if Sutek was a real, live animal.
The head of Set is that of a Congolese animal--the okapi
💜💙💜💙
probably a brown hyena
They could be very colored!
I haven't watched the vid yet but 1st thing that came to me was a maned wolf?
This is straight-up plagiarized from the Wikipedia page for Set animal.
I noticed that as well. Makes me wonder how much of the rest of his content is just the same. Such a shame because I was enjoying it, but I think I'm done now.
@@KonguZya Don't let the door smack ya on your way out. nobody cares about your departure
Letmedoitforyou