For those of you who’ve never seen our dog, Ashurbanipaw (Ashur for short), here he is. He’s a Jack Russell terrier-Basenji mix. Here’s the scoop on his name: they trace Basenjis back to ancient Egypt, to the tombs of the Pharaohs (c. 3,000 BC). So, we wanted to have an Egyptian feel to his name. We didn’t like any Egyptian names, so we ended up modifying the name of a great Assyrian monarch named “Ashurbanipal” and changed it to Ashurbanipaw (for obvious reasons). Ashurbanipal was not Egyptian, but did conquer Egypt at one time. He was the last great Assyrian king, who were bad guys in the Old Testament. The Assyrians took the kingdom of Israel into captivity in 722 BC. Ashurbanipal reigned from about 668-626 BC (context: think 350 years after King David, a couple of hundred years before Plato). He was actually a pretty brutal tyrant, although many think he amassed the first real library.
