Ancient Red Sea Port May Have World’s Oldest Pet Cemetery

Archaeologists unearthed an extensive animal burial ground at the 2,000-year-old port of Berenice on the Red Sea coast of Egypt a decade ago. Now they say that the evidence found in almost 600 animal graves suggests this could be the world’s oldest pet cemetery.

The site was first discovered by archaeozoologist Marta Osypinska and her colleagues at the Polish Academy of Sciences in 2011. It’s located just outside the city walls of Berenice (also spelled Berenike.) It was under a Roman trash dump and the researchers write in their new paper published in World Archaeology that “The ‘pet cemetery’ at the port functioned from the mid-1st to mid-2nd century AD.”

Exploring Animal Life in Berenice 2,000 Years Ago?

Before examining the nature of the burials and approaching the pet cemetery debate, it’s worth putting the animal graves into context. Berenice was a port that would have seen many ships, as the Romans who controlled it traded ivory, fabrics, and other luxury goods with people all over India, Arabia, and Europe. Imported resources were not only of economic concern, but they were also important to keeping people, and possibly their pets, alive in this location.

A busy port would have had rats, and that means that cats and dogs could have been very helpful creatures to have around. They may have held value, in part, as working animals. Larger dogs could have also served to protect homes and other buildings.

The Graves of Hundreds of Animals Tell Tales of Human Interest

The assumption that this may be the oldest pet cemetery in the world is based on the analysis of 585 burials which have been unearthed to date. Most of the graves were made for cats, although the researchers also write that they found dogs “mainly of a light, Spitz-type, there was also a taller variant, as well as toy-dogs” and “two species of macaques” at the burial ground.

Most of the burials suggest that the animals were laid to rest with care in well-prepared graves. Excavations revealed many of the bodies had been covered with textiles or pottery fragments – as if the animals were inside “a kind of sarcophagus,” according to Osypinska.

Numerous cats, which make up 90% of the burials in the proposed pet cemetery, were wearing iron collars or necklaces with glass and shell beads. They even found one cat which had been placed on a large bird wing in its burial pit.

The study authors argue that the manner of the burials, nature of the remains, and the grave goods all suggest that these animals were pets – a concept which has been debated when discussing animal and human relationships in the distant past.

For example, back in 2017 , when the excavation team had already discovered dozens of animals, they were told that the remains could just be discarded trash and of little relevance for people interested in understanding the lives of the humans who inhabited the site.

But that didn’t sway Osypinska from her perspective that there was something more to the site and the relationship between the animals in the graveyard and the people who they accompanied during their lives. She told Science magazine “At first, some very experienced archaeologists discouraged me from this research. I hope the results of our studies prove that it’s worth it.”

Signs of Care

When a veterinarian joined the team to analyze the bones and determine the animals’ health, diet, and cause of death, they discovered evidence to support the notion that the animals had received human care during their lives. The report shows that the animals mostly died from injury or disease, but several of them received more than basic care.

Osypinska explained that many of the animals had lived long lives and their bones show evidence of injuries having healed. “We have individuals who have very limited mobility. Such animals had to be fed to survive,” she said, “sometimes with special foods in the case of the almost-toothless animals.”

But is it a Pet Cemetery?

According to the new paper, these actions could only be explained by the “close emotional relationships” between the animals and humans. “They weren’t doing it for the gods or for any utilitarian benefit,” Osypinska said.

Which brings up a common argument against the belief that these were pets. Some researchers still argue that the busy port of Berenice lends support to the notion that these were working animals, it’s worth remembering that, as the researchers note “dogs and cats may be explained by the need of their utilitarian ‘services’, [but] it seems difficult to justify the presence of miniature dogs and macaques on such grounds.”

Salima Ikram, an archaeologist and professor of Egyptology at The American University in Cairo, who Science magazine notes was one of the naysayers in 2017, has now been convinced by the evidence. “This is a cemetery. And it sheds an interesting light on the inhabitants of Berenice and their relationships with their animals.”

In the end, even if many of the animals were working animals, that doesn’t negate the idea that they were also loved. The care that went into burying these animals shows that there was a special bond between at least some of the animals and the humans who buried them. Previous studies all around the world already provide enough evidence that humans living in the distant past had strong emotional bonds to animals.