The ancient Egyptians are well known for theirworship of cats , although young finding suggest that they also kept feline as pets , just like many of us do today . This new perceptiveness come after the remains of almost 600 big cat , click and monkeys were unearth at apet cemeterythat dates back around 2,000 year .
Found at the ancient Red Sea port of Berenice , the cemetery was first discovered a decade ago , although investigator were shy if the creature bones get hold here represented genuine burials . Initially , some bookman had suggested that the remains had merely been discarded as trash .
However , a more detailed analysis of the website has run to the closing that it was in fact a rest position for darling PET , making it the humans ’s oldest known preferred cemetery .
Writing in the journalWorld Archaeology , a team of excavators reveals that the site arrest a amount of 585 asleep beast , each of which had been place to rest in a carefully dug pit . guess to have been in use from the first to the 2nd 100 CE , the cemetery provides an eternal nursing home to a range of different species , some of which were not aboriginal to Africa .
Around 90 percent of the pets bury at Berenice were quat , with little European breeds detect alongside the larger Egyptian felid . Many of these rollick collar or other adornment , indicating their pet status .
The researchers were even able to analyze the stomach content of some of these cats , remark that the animals were “ fed with ‘ selected ’ nutrient ” that would not have been uncommitted to non - domesticated cats .
Dogs made up about five percent of the cemetery ’s inhabitants , with the majority being of a lowly Spitz - type . However , the study writer did see the cadaver of one Maltese “ toy dog ” , as well as a orotund individual with an unusually long skull , resembling the hunting dogs that were popular in Pompeii .
Many of the creature unearthed at the site had distinctly lived to old age and showed signs of having live on with harm or diseases . Some hot dog even had mucilage disease , all of which evoke that they must have been well cared for and fed byhuman companions .
“ As none of these former dogs were equal to of finding food severally , one can conclude that they were entirely pendent on human upkeep , ” write the study authors .
The team also found the cadaver of two macaque , both of which were native to the Indian submarine - continent . How these animal wound up as deary in Egypt remains something of a closed book , although the study author note that one of these monkeys was given an “ exceptional burial ” , with a number of striking shells and pieces of pottery placed around its physical structure .
In conclusion , the generator believe these findings give new insights into life in Ancient Egypt , particularly the “ relationships between humans and animalswhose only task could have been providing a person with companionship , perhaps emotional entertainment . ”
