Biggest Cemetery for Pets in Ancient Egypt, unearthed

CAIRO – 7 October 2017: an archaeological mission from the Polish Center for Mediterranean Archaeology at Warsaw University unearthed the biggest cemetery for pets in Ancient Egypt in Red Sea coast area on Saturday.

The cemetery is two millennia old and it contained the skeletons of 100 domestic pets such as cats, dogs and monkeys, according to an article published on Newsweek.
The discovery is a part from a large excavation near Berenike town and its temple that was made to Serapis God.

The cemetery carried different graveyards for the common domestic animals in ancient Egypt and in the time of Romans.

Many cats were mummified with simple accessories and two cats were buried with two ostrich eggs.

The way the animals are mummified indicated that those animals were companions to the ancient Egyptian families; they were not used as sacrifices.

Ancient Egyptians treated a number of animals as companions specially cats, Egyptians raised cats in their houses.

A number of animals had high rank in the ancient Egypt as cows, it was used as a symbol of beauty and it was an image of Hathor.

Monkeys were praised because their shouts were considered as greetings for Ra’ god. Cobra snakes reflected the fertile lands of Egypt.

Dogs also were important in the Egyptian mythology because they were the guards of the tombs, while Cats were the closest animals to the Egyptians and it reflected the temperature of the sun.