Ashkelon dog cemetery

The Ashkelon dog cemetery is a burial ground in the city of Ashkelon in Israel where possibly thousands of dogs were interred in the fifth to third centuries BC. The majority of the dogs were puppies; all had similarities to the modern Canaan Dog, perhaps representing the ancestral population from which the modern breed is descended. It is the largest known cemetery of this kind in the ancient world. Its discoverer suggests that it may have been the product of a religious cult focused on the reputed healing properties of dogs' saliva, and an otherwise obscure reference in the Book of Deuteronomy may refer to similar cultic activities in Jerusalem. Alternatively, it may have been the site of a facility for breeding dogs for trade in the Near East.

The cemetery was discovered in the Ashkelon National Park by Lawrence Stager during excavations undertaken between 1986–1994 for the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon. His team uncovered the skeletons of more than 1,300 dogs. They had been buried at a time when the Phoenician-populated city was ruled by Achaemenid Persia as a client state.

Most of the dogs were found buried in a series of terraces which had previously been occupied by a large warehouse overlooking the sea. The burial ground extended south into an area that appears to have only been briefly been used as a dog cemetery before being built upon, and probably extended west into an area that has been lost to coastal erosion. The burials have been dated to between the fifth and the first part of the fourth century BC. The burial ground may have been in use for about fifty years. Stager notes that as "only the eastern limits of the cemetery have been established, we can speculate that it was originally much larger, with dog burials probably numbering in the thousands." He describes it as "by far the largest dog cemetery known in the ancient world." Another series of burials was found to the north-east, where dogs had been buried in streets or in thoroughfares between large buildings. These were of later dates, from the late Persian period to the early Hellenistic period.

Each animal occupied an individual shallow pit and was laid on its side with its tail tucked between its hind legs. The burials were not marked, there were no offerings in the pits and the dogs were not oriented in any consistent direction. The corpses were carefully interred, in some cases perhaps having their limbs bound at the ankles before burial. In contrast, the burial pits were dug somewhat haphazardly, overlapping and occasionally intruding on each other. At least sixty percent of the dogs were puppies; some were probably fetuses. The burials appear to have taken place individually over time, rather than en masse.

...
Wikipedia