They discovered the largest and oldest animal cemetery in the world in Egypt

Archaeologists have discovered Egypt’s oldest animal cemetery, nearly 2,000 years old, filled with remains of cats and monkeys wearing necklaces with shell, glass and stone beads.

Ancient Egyptians are known to mummify countless animals to honor gods, but this cemetery is different, said study lead researcher Marta Osypinska, a zooarchaeologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Unlike some mummified animals that have been buried elsewhere, sometimes from starvation or a broken neck, none of the creatures in this cemetery, located just outside the port of Berenice on the Red Sea, showed signs of being killed by people.

In exchange, “we have old, sick and deformed animals that had to be fed and cared for by someone»Said Osypinska Live Science in an email. “We have animals (almost all of them) that are buried very carefully. The animals are placed in a sleeping position, sometimes wrapped in a blanket, sometimes covered with dishes ”.

In one case, a macaque monkey was buried with three kittens, a basket of grass, cloth, pot fragments (one of which covered a piglet) and “two very beautiful shells from the Indian Ocean stacked against its head, “Osypinska explained. “Then, We believe that in Berenice the animals were not sacrifices to the gods, but only pets.“.

Archaeologists discovered the pet cemetery, which dates back to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD to the early Roman period of Egypt, by accident. For years, Researchers have excavated the outskirts of Berenice because it houses an old landfill. In 2011, archaeologists began to find remains of small animals in one area, so they visited Osypinska due to its specialty in zooarchaeology.

“It turned out to be dozens of cat skeletons,” he said. In fact, of the 585 animals they excavated, 536 were cats, 32 dogs, 15 monkeys, a fox and a hawk. None of the animals were mummified, but some were placed in makeshift coffins. For example, a large dog “was wrapped in a carpet of palm leaves and someone had carefully placed two halves of a large vessel (amphora) on its body,” like a sarcophagus, according to Osypinska.

Like some animals today, These animals may have worked for their owners, researchers say. For example, cats may have been mice and dogs could have helped protect and hunt. But some animals were deformed, meaning they probably couldn’t run.

“Someone fed and kept such a ‘useless’ cat,” Osypinska snapped. His team also found dogs, some almost toothless, who were reaching old age, and three “toy dogs”, smaller than cats, probably too small to work.

Other clues indicated that these animals were pets, including the fact that many cats wore iron or pearl collars, “sometimes very precious and unique,” Osypinska said. An ostracon, a piece of pottery with text, such as an “old text message,” found on the site, had a note from the days when some domestic cats were still alive, telling the owner not to worry about cats., because someone else was. taking care of them, he added.

Many researchers claim that the ancient world did not have the concept of “pets”, but “our discovery shows that humans have a deep need for the companionship of animals”, Osypinska clarified. About 2,000 years ago, “the port of Bérénice was at the end of the world. It was an empty and hostile piece of the world, ”he added. “The merchants came here to bring exclusive products to the empire. What they did on such a long and difficult journey: a beloved dog, or they brought in a monkey from India, or they had cats ”. The study appears in the online edition of the journal World Archeology.

With information from Europa Press

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