And here I thought keeping my beloved cat Moby’s ashes on top of my bookshelf was enough.
Archaeologists digging beneath the ancient city of Adramytteion on Turkey’s Aegean coast have uncovered a nearly 2,000-year-old villa containing the ultimate tribute to animal love: an elaborate 15-panel mosaic featuring a cat named Emerald and a dog named Ocean.
Dating to the 2nd or 3rd century AD, the artwork was discovered in what is believed to have been the villa’s main reception room, arranged around a central courtyard.
The mosaic is filled with birds, fish, mythological figures and felines, but only two animals were important enough to have their names included.
And, yes, one of them was a cat.
Meet Emerald, the cat with the best seat in the house
One panel depicts a pale-coloured cat named Emerald lounging comfortably on a blue-green cushion.
According to lead archaeologist Hüseyin Özgen, whose study will be published in the Journal of Mosaic Research, Emerald’s relaxed, at-home pose suggests this was not a stray that happened to wander into someone’s artwork.
Instead, the image suggests Emerald was a cherished animal comfortable enough to claim what appears to be a rather good cushion.
Any modern cat owner will recognise the attitude.
Then there was Ocean
Across the mosaic is Ocean, a dog captured mid-leap as though greeting visitors arriving at the villa.
Researchers believe the dog’s name might have been inspired by Adramytteion’s coastal setting.
While there is no way to know for certain whether Emerald and Ocean were pets in exactly the way we understand companion animals today, Özgen believes the two animals were well-known and deeply meaningful to the household.
Their names make them particularly noticeable.
Among a mosaic filled with animals and other figures, Emerald and Ocean were the ones somebody chose to identify.
Pet parents might not have changed that much
Around 1,800 years ago, somebody thought enough of a cat named Emerald and a dog named Ocean to have their images and names preserved in stone.
Today we have framed photographs, personalised blankets, paw-print keepsakes and, in my case, Moby’s ashes occupying a permanent place on top of the bookshelf.
Back then, apparently, you commissioned a mosaic.
We don’t know exactly what Emerald and Ocean meant to the people who lived in that ancient villa.
But the possibility that two animals were important enough to be immortalised by name feels wonderfully familiar.
Some things change over 1,800 years.
It seems our tendency to adore our animals might not be one of them.
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