Archaeology: Egyptian Pet Cemetery

The history of pets took a big step forward recently. Usually when archaeologists unearth ancient animal remains in Egypt, they find sacrificial offerings and ritual mummifications. Now, in a Roman era site, an Egyptian pet cemetery clearly reveals the kind of loving relationships that we think of with modern pets.

How did the lead archaeologist come to that conclusion? For ten years scholars dismissed the previously found site at the Roman port of Berenice as a place where people discarded animal remains as rubbish. But careful excavation showed a different story. Cats had iron collars and necklaces of glass ornaments. The pet owners arranged the bodies with care and laid pottery or fabrics over them as mini-sarcophagi. Many were aged animals that had lost teeth or otherwise had become decrepit. They would have to be hand fed to survive. I remembered grinding meat into a paste for my sweet old golden retriever at the end. So this was no trash heap, but a Roman Egyptian pet cemetery.

Click here for Science Magazine “Graves of nearly 600 cats and dogs in ancient Egypt may be world’s oldest pet cemetery.”

Here for a post about Egyptian burials of shabti figurines as servants for the dead.