Friday Archaeology Blogging
Short, smelly edition.

Aphrodite perfumes sniffed out
22nd March 2007, 8:45 WST

The world’s oldest perfumes have been found on Cyprus by a team of archaeologists.

The perfumes were scented with extracts of lavender, bay, rosemary, pine or coriander and kept in tiny, translucent alabaster bottles. The remaining traces found in Pyrgos, in the south of the island, are more than 4000 years old.

As the article goes on to point out, it's appropriate that the material was found on Cyprus, given that that island is the traditional site of the birth of Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love.


The birth of Aphrodite

Anyway, the interesting thing here is that not only were Bronze Age Cypriots making perfumes, they were apparently doing so in bulk; the size of the recently discovered "perfume factory" is about 43,000 square feet. This is not terribly surprising - perfume in the ancient world was as much a luxury item as it is now.


An elaborate bronze-age perfume bottle

Perfume maintained its popularity through the age of Classical Greece; the infamous courtesan Lais of Corinth (10,000 drachmas per "appointment", apparently!), is said to have developed her own perfume from orange blossoms and oyster shells in the 4th century B.C., a perfume which has never been successfully duplicated. The Romans, too, were very into perfumes; some figures from the time of Augustus indicate that roughly 3,000 tons of frankincense was used in Rome per year.


Ancient Roman perfume bottles

Friday Archaeology Blogging

Now appearing pretty much on any day that isn't a Friday, it seems...

Anyway, one of the things that happened to me during the last month or so, during the recent silence on this site, is that my 16-year-old cat Claudia passed away (peacefully, quietly, and at home, which is about as much as one can hope for). So, this particular edition of Friday Archaeology Blogging is going to be a brief and general survey of ancient pets, particularly cats. And, by "pets" I mean animals domesticated for reasons of comfort and companionship, rather than food, hunting, protection, vermin control, etc.

The Egyptians and Earlier

The Egyptians' attitude towards cats is well known; they viewed them as sacred, and our first written records of cats come from that civilization. Indeed, cats were often mummified by the Egyptians (as were many, many other animals), and cat mummies are found in many Egyptian tombs, suggesting at least some sort of emotional bond between the deceased person and his or her animals.


Egyptian cat mummies

We even have an early mention of a named cat from Egypt. A cat found in a tomb near Thebes, dating to about 1450 B.C., seems to have been named "The Pleasant One."


Tomb painting from the tomb in which The Pleasant One was found

However, actual "pet-ification" of cats may predate the Egyptians by millenia, as suggested by the recent discovery of a neolithic burial on Cyprus which dates to roughly 8,000 B.C.



Now, there is no evidence here beyond the circumstantial to indicate that the cat buried in this case was a pet. However, the inclusion of the animal in a tomb is evidence that it was at the very least of value to the deceased person, and I can't help but see this as a stepping stone to the kind of master-pet relationship that became common later on.

The Romans


A bird (a duck?) portrayed on a 2nd century A.D. mosaic from Italica, in what is now Andalucia.

The Romans do not seem to have held cats in quite the same esteem as the Egyptians. Cat footprints are found on ancient Roman terracotta roof tiles, indicating that somebody's cat had gone for a walk while the tile was drying in the sun, but there is little evidence for cats as pets. However, the Romans did keep other pets, as shown by a poem of Catullus, written in the mid-first century B.C., lamenting the death of a bird (Latin text here):

CATVLLI CARMEN III (adapted from a translation by Walter Sullivan [JTK)

Mourn, oh Cupids and Venuses,
and all people of charm and refinement:
the sparrow of my girlfriend has died,
the sparrow, delight of my girl,
whom she loved more than her own eyes.
For it was honey-sweet and it knew its
mistress as well as a girl knows her mother,
nor would it move itself from her lap,
but jumping around hither and thither,
he used to chirp continually to his mistress alone:
now he embarks on that gloomy journey
from which, they say, no one ever returns.
Curses on you, evil shadows of Orcus,
you who devour all beautiful things,
so lovely a sparrow have you taken away from me.
O evil deed! o miserable little sparrow!
Now because of you my girl's swollen little eyes
are red from weeping.

I would note, concerning this poem, that there is debate about the actual meaning of the poem. I have heard it argued, implausibly in my humble opinion, that the bird here represents the poet's relationship with the girl, a relationship which has now ended (the logic being that the sparrow was a sacred bird of Venus, goddess of love, and that furthermore we know that Catullus did break up with his girlfriend, and that it was extremely traumatic for him). This seems to me to be a clear case of reading too much into a piece of literature.

Pre-Incan Peoples of Peru

To jump briefly and illogically across the pond, I thought I'd end by mentioning this. According to the article, archaeologists in Peru have been excavating an actual dog cemetery, approximately 600 to 1,000 years old, wherein the animals were often buried with blankets and treats. Care taken to ensure an animal's comfort in the next life again speaks quite clearly to the animals status, at least in part, as pets.


An ancient Peruvian dog

I suppose the point here is that people have been domesticating animals for "non-utilitarian" purposes for a heck of a long time, and pretty much globally (I actually couldn't find much evidence at all for cultures that didn't have pets). Long may we continue to do so.


Ancient Egyptian wall-painting

Friday Archaeology Blogging

On coffins, etc.

Ancient Coffin Depicts Scenes from Homer's Odyssey, Iliad
By George Psyllides
Associated Press
posted: 21 March 2006
11:07 am ET

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) -- A 2,500-year-old sarcophagus with vivid color illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus, archaeologists said Monday.



And there it is (click on it to see a bigger version). You can quite clearly see a chariot containing two warriors, with the man in front driving, and the fellow behind him carrying a bow. The horse appears to be trampling somebody, and there's another chariot coming up behind the one shown. There's no telling which bit of the Iliad or Odyssey it's depicting - people riding around in chariots form a big part particularly of the Iliad. Here's a sample:

Aeneas answered, "Say no more. Things will not mend till we two go
against this man with chariot and horses and bring him to a trial of
arms. Mount my chariot, and note how cleverly the horses of Tros can
speed hither and thither over the plain in pursuit or flight. If
Jove again vouchsafes glory to the son of Tydeus they will carry us
safely back to the city. Take hold, then, of the whip and reins
while I stand upon the car to fight, or else do you wait this man's
onset while I look after the horses."
"Aeneas." replied the son of Lycaon, "take the reins and drive; if
we have to fly before the son of Tydeus the horses will go better
for their own driver. If they miss the sound of your voice when they
expect it they may be frightened, and refuse to take us out of the
fight. The son of Tydeus will then kill both of us and take the
horses. Therefore drive them yourself and I will be ready for him with
my spear."
They then mounted the chariot and drove full-speed towards the son
of Tydeus. Sthenelus, son of Capaneus, saw them coming and said to
Diomed, "Diomed, son of Tydeus, man after my own heart, I see two
heroes speeding towards you, both of them men of might the one a
skilful archer, Pandarus son of Lycaon, the other, Aeneas, whose
sire is Anchises, while his mother is Venus. Mount the chariot and let
us retreat. Do not, I pray you, press so furiously forward, or you may
get killed." Iliad, Book V.

Homeric scenes are not especially rare on sarcophagi, which is not surprising considering the popularity of the works in ancient times. Here's another example (once again, click on it to see the bigger picture), showing a scene from the Odyssey.



"I had hardly finished telling everything to the men before we
reached the island of the two Sirens, for the wind had been very
favourable. Then all of a sudden it fell dead calm; there was not a
breath of wind nor a ripple upon the water, so the men furled the
sails and stowed them; then taking to their oars they whitened the
water with the foam they raised in rowing. Meanwhile I look a large
wheel of wax and cut it up small with my sword. Then I kneaded the wax
in my strong hands till it became soft, which it soon did between
the kneading and the rays of the sun-god son of Hyperion. Then I
stopped the ears of all my men, and they bound me hands and feet to
the mast as I stood upright on the crosspiece; but they went on rowing
themselves. When we had got within earshot of the land, and the ship
was going at a good rate, the Sirens saw that we were getting in shore
and began with their singing.
"'Come here,' they sang, 'renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean
name, and listen to our two voices. No one ever sailed past us without
staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of our song- and he who
listens will go on his way not only charmed, but wiser, for we know
all the ills that the gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before
Troy, and can tell you everything that is going to happen over the
whole world.'
"They sang these words most musically, and as I longed to hear
them further I made by frowning to my men that they should set me
free; but they quickened their stroke, and Eurylochus and Perimedes
bound me with still stronger bonds till we had got out of hearing of
the Sirens' voices. Then my men took the wax from their ears and
unbound me. Odyssey, Book XII

Anyway, there's not too much to this week's Friday Archaeology Blogging; I really just wanted to show some nice pictures of sarcophagi (the word, incidentally, literally means "flesh-eating," and refers to the limestone commonly used in their construction, which caused the bodies within to decompose rapidly). I would point out that they are intrinsically interesting as objets d'art, in particular those made by the Etruscans. For one thing, early Etruscan sarcophagi are our only real source of information on what Etruscan houses looked like:



For another, they occasionally included detailed, life-sized, representations of the people buried within:



I will close this brief digression on sarcophagi by saying only that I would very badly like to know the story behind this one: