Q&A Your history questions answered
People have kept domestic animal companions for thousands of years. In northern Israel, for instance, archaeologists unearthed the remains of a puppy cradled by a human being, some 12,000 years old. Is this the world’s oldest known pet? Unfortunately it is almost impossible to say, as pet-keeping implies affection, and this cannot be read off prehistoric burials.
If individual names are indicators of an emotional relationship, however, we can be more precise. The oldest named domestic animal is said to be a palace dog called “Abuwtiyuw” or “Abutiu”, buried by a grieving pharaoh in a tomb from the Egyptian sixth dynasty, around 2280 BC. The tablet that encased the dog recorded: “His Majesty ordered that he be buried ceremonially, that he be given a coffin from the royal treasury, fine linen in great quantity, and incense. His majesty also gave perfumed ointment, and ordered that a tomb be built for him by the gangs of masons. His majesty did this for him in order that he might be honoured before the great god, Anubis.”
Roman pet owners left similarly gushing tributes, as with a grave marker to “Helena”, a dog that lived in the second century AD and was lovingly described as a “foster child”. But Roman writers generally tended to disapprove of indulged pets, and at different times and in different places, pet ownership was frowned upon. It is not perhaps until the Victorian age that we see the development of the kind of widespread and accepted pet culture that we know today.
Philip Howell, lecturer in historical geography at the University of Cambridge