One reader had asked for more information about the dog burial (or “canid” as it will be called in the professional literature) in Operation N and Tina has kindly supplied the following.
In general, we don’t have a large population of domestic dogs at Ziyaret Tepe found in any of the time periods. There have been seven canids from Assyrian contexts and four from Medieval contexts. According to Tina’s preliminary assessment, there is no evidence for wild dogs or wolves at the site. There are only a couple of butchered canids at the site, both from the Medieval period. Other than that, there are no other in situ articulated dogs at Ziyaret Tepe.
Here are some very general references about canid burials and the concept of “pets” in the Near East and Mediterranean and Europe. They cover a range of time periods as well. Tina also mentioned that there are numerous depictions of dogs in hunting scenes, looking rather nasty, from Assyrian artwork, but these are probably not pets in our sense of the word.
There was a pet cemetery found at Ashkelon dating to the 5th century BC.
In Mesopotamia, we find dog burials as well as dogs buried in association with humans.
There were also burials of dogs from medieval Germany, for example in Halberstadt from the 13th/14th cent. AD and from Siegburg, ca. 1600 AD.
Finally, there are also several instances of the Greeks having dog burials as well as dogs buried in association with humans.
Hope these references are useful! It is not an exhaustive list, but something to get people interested in the subject started.
2 replies on “More on ancient dog burials.”
Thank you, Tim and Tina! I will check out all the websites you listed, and better still, will make my students check them out! Are there any Assyrian dog pictures similar to those found in Egypt where the dog is depicted sitting with the family? I can’t recall any… Were there jackals in the area? I am really enjoying following you guys on the blog. How long will the blog remain up after your season is done? I hope until I’ve gotten through field work in Intro Arch.
Liz
Dear Tim,
I have excavated few dog burials. One of them is in Kavuşan Höyük. T dog skeleton was completely covered with mud. I remember it was not easy to dig up. The second one is in Şarhöyük, Darylion?/Eskişehir. In this site, a very young dog was buried in a pot. Third one is dated to Roman period in Perge/Antalya. It is found in western cemetery. A very flat pottery, mortar (?) had been put as a cover of the dog grave. I remember some animal burial which may include dog burial have been excavated in the Iron Age layers of Menekse Çatağı by Aslı Erim Özdoğan. I hope these cases can help to enrich the dog grave list. If possible I want to visit to you in Ziyaret Tepe during my trip to Bismil. All the best, Yilmaz