Excavations of the pet cemetery in the Red Sea port town of Berenike have unearthed the remains of 585 clearly identified individuals. There were even more, but those remains were destroyed or too incomplete to count.

The pet cemetery was discovered in 2011 northwest of the walls of the Roman-era town. Unlike other Egyptian sites where the remains of animals were found, these animals were not mummified, nor temple offerings, nor deliberately killed. Other animal burial sites in the Nile Valley also include human burials; this one does not.

The site on the outskirts of town was used a trash dump but the animals were not thrown away like garbage. They were lovingly buried, intentionally posed in a sleeping position, and often covered with pieces of pottery. Most of them were individual burials, although there are several group burials, mostly of kittens. There are no grave goods, but they were frequently buried wearing collars of iron (only found on cats and monkeys) and bronze and beaded necklaces. Some of the burials included the remains of other animals, like the cat buried on the wing of a large bird.

The trash layers were useful in dating the pet burials, narrowing down its use as a pet cemetery from the mid-1st century through the mid-2nd century. During that period, people buried 536 cats, 32 dogs, 16 monkeys, one Rüppell’s fox and one Barbary falcon.

Most of the dogs are of medium size comparable to a Spitz type. One exception was taller with a longer skull, similar in morphology to modern-day Pharaoh hounds which are sighthounds used to hunt small game. Another exception went in the other direction: it was a miniature breed of a Maltese type. It is the only toy dog ever found in Egypt. The majority of the dogs lived to maturity, several to old age, long past the time when they could be used as hunting and sporting dogs.

Analysis of the remains found that the vast majority of the cats roamed outdoors, but they were definitely pets. They had their wounds treated, wore ornamental collars and were fed with selected foods. There’s even written evidence found on an ostracon at another site from early Roman Berenike: “Herennius to Satornilus his dearest, greetings (…) Concerning the cats, Ourses is taking care of them in accordance with what I also wrote you on another occasion.” Even so, the cats died a lot younger than the dogs did. This is likely due to infectious diseases that spread easily among the much larger feline population, resulting in high mortality among young animals.

In broad perspective, the discoveries from Berenice make it possible to test the theses dominating scientific discourse on the human-animal relationship in antiquity. In particular, the concepts of ‘pets’ and ‘companion animal’ need to be a subject of new debate. Of course, one cannot clearly transpose the situation in a socially and culturally specific peripheral port to the general situation in the ancient Roman world. Nevertheless, strong evidence, archaeozoological, veterinary and textual, clearly indicate that the people living in Berenice nearly two thousand years ago looked after ‘non-utilitarian’ animals in similar ways as today. We are able to clearly identify and recognize the relationships between humans and animals whose only task could have been providing a person with companionship, perhaps emotional entertainment. In this respect, the results of our research enrich our knowledge of the ancient world not only in the field of archaeozoology and veterinary medicine, but also classical archaeology and ancient history.

Archaeological surveys at the medieval castle of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos have discovered a massive Byzantine-era doorway. The doorway is 3.2 meters (10’6″) high, 2.05 meters (6’9″) wide and two meters (6’7″) deep. It was was made of nine slabs of locally sourced gray-white marble mortared together. There was a wooden door attached originally, although all that remains attesting to it are cavities in the lintel where it was hinged. There are some areas of decorative carving surviving —  ribbons and a convex wave on the sides, a convex cornice across the top. Coins found date it to the 7th century A.D. making it the oldest

The urban settlement Mytilene dates back at least to the 7th century B.C. (Pseudo-Herodotus’ entirely unreliable Life of Homer places its founding way earlier, in the 11th century B.C.). In its long history it has been conquered by Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Genoese, Venetians and Ottomans before becoming part of modern Greece in 1923.

The earliest confirmed building phase of the castle took place in the 6th century in the reign of Justinian I (r. 527-565), but it may have been constructed on top of what was once the city’s acropolis incorporating elements of its ancient sanctuaries. Much of the medieval castle was built by Francesco I Gattilusio, a Genoese pirate who was given Lesbos by Byzantine Emperor John V in 1355 as a dowry when Gattilusio married the emperor’s sister Maria Palaiologina. The fortress fell to Ottoman forces under Mehmed the Conqueror in 1462 and it took heavy damage from Ottoman bombardment. Sultan Bayezid II repaired and expanded the castle in the early 16th century. Lesbos remained an Ottoman territory until late 1912 when it was taken by Greek naval operations in the First Balkan War.

Today the castle complex is one of the largest in the Mediterranean covering 60 acres. The complex is divided into three parts: the Upper Castle is at the top of the hill where the ancient acropolis stood; the Middle Castle mostly dates to the Gattilusio expansion; the Lower Castle was believed to be an Ottoman addition, built in 1644 by Sultan Ibrahim to strengthen the fortifications of the northern port as he embarked on what would become a 24-year-long war in the Aegean against the Republic of Venice.

Very few remains from the early Byzantine period are extant. They include a small gate on the northeastern wall, the eastern wall of the Upper Castle and the cistern in the Middle Castle. The discovery of the doorway, therefore, sheds new light on the architecture of the castle in its first phase. Archaeologists also believe it may be connected to the Byzantine settlement of Melanoudi, a residential settlement within the castle’s defensive walls whose location was previously unknown.

The doorway had been buried for centuries under layers of ash generated by another discovery made at the site: a 16th century bathhouse built by another pirate, Ottoman admiral and Lesbos native Hayreddin Barbarossa whose father had fought with  Mehmed the Conqueror and settled on the island after the conquest. The remains of vaulted hot, warm and cold rooms of the bath complex were found, as well as the remains of the fire pits beneath. It is the oldest bath found on Lesbos, which has quite a few thanks to its centuries under Ottoman rule.