Dog Burials in the Greek World

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Dog Burials in the Greek World

Leslie Preston Day

American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 88, No. 1. (Jan., 1984), pp. 21-32.

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Dog Burials

in

the Greek World

LESLIE PRESTON

DAY

(Pl. 6, figs. 5-6)

Abstract

Recent excavations of Ear ly Iron Age tombs at Kavo u-

si, Crete , have revealed new evidence for dog bur ial in the

Greek world. Dogs were sometimes, although not regu-

larly, buried with hum ans in chamber an d tholos tombs

of the Late B ronze Age on Crete and the Ma inland. In

the Early Iron Age the practice continued on Crete,

where dogs were buried in pits in cemeteries separate

from their masters, often accompanying horses or don-

keys. Thi s practice is reflected in the sacrifices at the fu-

neral of Patroklos in the Iliad Dogs were probably in-

tended to act as companions or guar dians on the journey

to the Underw orld, although they may have served a fur-

the r fun ction of purifica tion, to judge from th e use of dogs

in purification rites in the later periods. The custom of

dog burial died out after the Geometric Period, and a

changed attitude toward dogs can be seen in the more

sentimental treatment revealed in tomb markers and epi-

gram s. Th e Kavo usi dog burials have their closest paral-

lels in D ark Age Crete, but th e num ber of dogs involved

and the presence of pup pies make them un usual.

During the excavation in 1981 of an Early Iron

Age tomb at Kavousi in East Crete,' the remains of

numerous dogs were uncovered in a pit beneath the

burial chamber. They may represent a sacrifice that

accompanied the burial rites, as do other dog burials

found in Late Bronze-Early Iron Age tombs. Th e

tomb belongs to a cemetery of Sub-Minoan through

Protogeometric graves2 in the mountains above the

modern village of Kavousi at a site called Vronda.

The cemetery is well known from the excavations of

Harriet Boyd (Hawes) in 1900 and belonged to a

nearby settlement.' In 1981, Geraldine C. Gesell,

William Coulson and I were able to clean these tombs

and excavate a new tholos with the help of Costis Da-

varas and under the auspices of the American School

of Classical Studies at

at hen^.^

This previously unexcavated tomb is, like the oth-

ers in the cemetery, a small tholos. Its ground plan is

horseshoe-shaped; it measures 1.30 1.60 m. on the

Th is article represents only a preliminary report on one aspect

of the Kavousi excavations. For a fuller report, see G.C. Gesell,

L.P. Day and W.D.E. Coulson, "Excavations and Survey at Ka-

vousi,

1978-1981," Hespen a 52 (1983) 389-420.

In all the tombs whose contents are known there was a small

amount of early Geom etric pottery , but the majority of the material

belonged to the Sub-M inoan through Protogeometric Periods.

H. Boyd, "Excavations at Kavousi, Crete, in

1900," AJA 5

21

American Journal ofArchaeology

88 (1984)

interior, with a stomion or short dromos opening at

the flat end on the north (ill. 1). Preserved to a height

of 1.34 m., it lacks the uppermost wall courses. The

tomb had been robbed, so little was found within it;

the few diagnostic sherds were either Protogeometric

or Byzantine, the former probably from the material

removed by the robbers, and the latter from pots

thrown in when the tomb was filled in after the

robbing.

Beneath the floor of the tomb was a pit, 0.80 m.

deep, cut into the soft bedrock (ill. 2). Th e sides of the

pit followed roughly the lines of the walls of the tomb,

but they were often cut back under the tomb walls by

KAVOUSI VRONDA X

e e

I

Pd

m

Ill. 1. Kavousi. Plan of Vronda, Tomb

X

(1901) 125-57.

Many thanks are due to Mr . Davaras and the Greek Archaeo-

logical Service for their permission a nd ai d, and to George Se kada-

kis, the local landowner at Vronda. T he w ork was m ade possible

through grants from the College of Wooster, the University of Te n-

nessee, Knoxville, the University of Minne sota and the Am erican

Philosophical Society.



22 LES L I E P R E S TO N DAY [ AJA

88

S e c t i o n t h r o u g h

Ill.

2.

Kavousi. Section of Vro nda, T om b

X

as much as

0.10

m. The pit contained a loose fill of

stones and a little earth, and there were many skele-

tons of animals lying in contorted positions horizon-

tally and vertically in the fill (pl.

6,

fig.

5).

A brief

preliminary investigation of these bones by Sheilagh

Wa ll of Bristol University has shown that t he anim als

were mostly canids, a num ber of them puppies, w ith

fox or ma rten and a few donkey bones mixed T he

dogs were ap paren tly throw n into the pit whole, since

the skeletons were foun d fully articulated a nd showed

no signs of having been butchered (pl. 6, fig. 6).

The dogs seem to have been deposited before the

walls of the tomb were built, although this sequence

cannot be proved. T he re was little ceramic material in

the fill with the animals, a nd although most of it was

non-diagnostic, there was nothing conclusively later

than Protogeometric. The facts that the pit lay just

below the tomb and that the tomb walls followed

roughly the same plan suggest tha t the builders of the

tomb knew of the pit; it is unlikely that they would

have run the risk of underm ining t he tomb by digging

out the pit beneath it. Of course, the possibility that

the pit was dug and the dogs thrown in after the tomb

was robbed cannot be ruled out entirely, especially

since local workmen reported tha t it was customary in

the Turk ish period to throw unw anted animals,

most-

Although a prelim inary cou nt and identification of these bones

have been made, a thorough study of them, including measure-

ments, breeds a nd ages, h as yet to be completed.

R.M. Daw kins, 'Excavations at Plati, BS 2 1913-14)

13-15.

Possibly it occurred more often than we think, since animal

bones from tombs were not always recognized, kept, studied or pub-

ly sheep and goats, alive into pits and let them starve.

It is difficult to see, however, how the tom b could have

avoided collapse if this were the case. Moreover, pits

dug below tombs like this one are not unknown in

Cr eta n tholoi; one pit of L M I11 date occurs in a tom b

at Pl ati in the Lasithi Plain , although it wa s used as a

receptacle for a larnax and not for animal bu ri ak 6

T h e burial of dogs, either associated with hu ma n

burial or made separately, is not an unknow n practice

in the ancient Greek world.' Although such burials

were never a regular f eat ure of funera l practice, a

number of examples are found both on Crete and

Mainland Greece in the Late Bronze Age and on

Crete in the Early Iro n Age,8 and a few ar e known

from late r periods. A catalogue, in chronological or der

by are a, of known dog burials in th e ancient world

follows. It does not claim to be complete, for there

must be other exam ples which are unrecognized, un-

published or not known to the author. Th e dogs are

most commonly buried with humans in tombs, but

dogs ar e also found buried with other anim als in pits

within human cemeteries. Less common, and of a

rath er different natu re, ar e the instances of dogs bur-

ied alone, intramurally. Finally, I have included ex-

amples of dum ps which contained dog bones and ex-

amples from neighboring but non-Greek areas where

puppies were sacrificed as part of religious rituals. In

each of these categories I have listed both the certain

remains of dogs and those which are less securely

identified, but may be dogs. Dogs and other animals

may occasionally have entered tombs and been unable

to escape, victims of their own curiosity or hunger

rather tha n deliberate sacrifices.

CA TA LO GU E ( il l. 3)

I . DOGS

BURIED WITH

H U M A N S

IN

T OM BS

A.

C Y PRUS

Lapithos

(E C 1-11)

To mb 30 3, Chamb er A. Fragments of a dog's skull were

found in the chamber along with two hu man bodies and a

large portion of a n ox. Th e ox bones were interpreted as

rema ins of the f unera l meal, the dog as a sacrifice to serve

its master after death.

E. Gjerstad et al. , The Swedish Cyprus Expedition

(Stockholm 1934) 47-49. P. Astrijm,

The Swedish Cy

lished, especially in earlie r excavations. Th e jaws of dogs and pigs,

for example, are easily confused when only the skull remains, and

some animals have, no doubt, been erroneously identified.

No dog burials are recorded from the islands of the Aegean in

this period, which is not surprising, since little has been excavated

there in comparison with the work done on the Mainland and

Crete.



19841 DO G BUR IALS I N T H E G R E E K W O R L D 23

Ill. 3. Sites at which dog burials have been found

prus Expedit ion 4.1B (Lun d 1972) 275. H . Cassimatis,

Les rites funeraires

h

Chypre, R D A C 1973, 132-33.

2. Lapithos ( M C I )

Tom b 322, Chamber D second level. Near the center of

the back wall lay th e almost complete skeleton of a dog.

Only a few scattered human bones were found, all be-

longing to a single individual.

E. Gjerstad et al., T h e Swedish Cyprus Expedit ion 1,147 ,

156.

J .

Wiesner,

Grab undjensei t s

(Berlin 1938) 135.

3 Politiko ( M C I )

To m b 3. Bones of one dog and one horse wkre found in

this round pit tomb.

E. Gjerstad, Studies on Prehistoric Cyprus (Uppsala

1926) 52, 81, 86.

H

Cassimatis, R D A C 1973, 141-42.

4 Politiko ( M C I )

To m b 18. A skeleton of a dog was found with th e remains

of 12-1 5 hum ans in a round pit tomb. Th is unus ual mass

burial was interpreted as a warrior tomb.

E. Gjerstad, Studies on Prehistoric C ypr us 53, 81, 86. H

Cassimatis, R D A C 1973, 141-42.

B. C R E T E

5

Knossos Maurospelio ( L M 1113)

Chamber To mb IX , chamber A. Th e human burial was

in a larn ax wh ich stood on 0.65 m. of ea rth, of which th e

lower 0.30 m, was a grave deposit containing the skull

an d leg bones of a dog.

Th e larnax was M M , but the soil below it was disturbed

and contained some L M I11 sherds.

E

J

Forsdyke, Th e Mav rospelio Cemetery at Knossos,

BS

28 (1926-27) 248,264.

6

Archanes Phourni ( L M I II A

?

Tholos B. In the c learing of th e blocking of th e dromos

were found the bones of a dog, mostly from the body, but

also from the skull. Th e skull was found separate from

the body.

Th e use of the tomb runs from M M I1 to L M IIIA, and

the dog remains ap pear to belong with the latest features.

J

Sakellarakis, Praktika 1966, 178.

7 Gournes (L M II IB)

Cham ber To mb I. A pit in the dromos contained a la rnax

with a skeleton and tw o sealstones. On e meter above the



24 L E S L IE P R E S T O N DAY [AJA88

pitinth edromos fillwereth eskeletonof asm alldogand

sheepbones,mixedwithtracesof burnin g.Possiblythese

weresacrificesoverthegrave.

J . Hazzidakis , Deltion

4

(1918)64.A.Kanta,The Late

Minoan 111 Period in Crete

(SIMA58,Goteborg1980)

47.

8 Karphi

(SM)

Tom bsM 16,M 17.Tom bM 16containedtheremains

of fourhu ma nbodies,aswellasbonesof dog,sheepand

goat.M 17wasanother chamberof thesametomb,but

noanimalboneswerefoundinit.

H.W .andJ.D.S. PendleburyandM.B .Money-Coutts ,

"Excavationsinthe Plainof Lasithi111:K arphi," BSA

38(1937-38) 107.M .Andronikos,Totenkult Archaeo-

logia Homerica

III.W,Gottingen1968)88.

C .

GREEK MAINLAND

9 Mycenae, Kalkani Cemetery (LHIIIA-B)

Ch am ber Tom b533.Askeletonof adogwasfoundscat-

teredaboutthetombsouthofthewesterndoorjamb.

A.J.B.Wace,Chamber Tombs at Mycenae Archaeologia

82.Oxford1932)116.

10. Dendra (L H I I IA : )

Royal

Tholes

Tom b,Pi t No, 2, opposite theentrance,

containedtheunbu rntbonesof humansandanima ls,in-

cludingthe well preserved skullof a dog. It w as inter-

preted by theexcavatoras apitof sacrificialvictims,but

Mylonassuggeststhatthepitwassimplyfilledwiththe

remnantsof previousburials.Th ree dogteethwerealso

found scatte redonth efloorof thetomb.

A. Persson,

The Royal Tombs at Dendra near Midea

(Lund1931)18,29,31,69.G.Mylonas,

Mycenae and

the

Age

(Princeton

128-29'

A ' Furu-

mark' Mycenaean Pottery

2 '

Chronology (repr'

Stock-

holm1972)53.

11. Asine (LHIIIA:2)

Chamber To mb 1 : l . On a bench in the middle of the

cham berwasthewellpreservedhea dof adoglyingclose

tothelatest hum an skeleton. Th eexcavatorsthought it

mightrepresentasacrifice

pars pro toto.

0 . FrodinandA.Persson,Asine (Stockholm 1938)358.

A. Furumark,

Mycenaean Pottery

2.

Chronology

62.

12.

Mycenae, Kalkani Cemetery

(LHIIIA:2)

Cham berTomb 505.Inthe

drOmOsand

m.above

thefloor a layer of black earth was foundwhich con-

tainedtwohum anskeletons,amassofsherds ,and anim al

bones,includ ingthesk ullsof adog,apigan dah orse

?).

A.J.B.Wace, Chamber Tombs at Mycenae 14,116n.1.

A. Furumark ,

Mycenaean Pottery

2.

Chronology

64.

13. Oxylithos, Euboea (LHIIIA:2)

TholosTomb.Oftheeightburialsinthetomb,threein-

humations(ofawoman,ayouthandaboy)haddeposits

of anim albonesabovethecorpses,includingcow,sheep,

goat,piganddog.Thesewereinterpretedasanimalsac-

rificesoverthegraves.

G.Papavasileios,n cp l r i; v i v Eb/3oip h p X a l o v i + o v

(Athens 1910)26.A. Furu mark ,

Mycenaean Pottery

2.

Chronology 58.M .Andronikos,Totenkult 87.

14. Thebes, Kolonaki Cemetery ( L H )

Ch am ber To mb 6.Just outsidethewallof thedromos,in

an unquestionably Mycenaean layer, the skeletonof a

dogwasuncovered.

T he term"M ycenaeanncertainlyreferstotheL H peri-

od,butthematerialcannotbemorecloselydated.

A.Keramopoulos,Deltion 3(1917)13 7.

15. Perati, Attica ( L H 111C:l ; 1190/85-1100 B.C.)

Tomb 1 . In Lakkos 2 were found th ree human skele-

tons, oneof which had been cremated, along with the

burned bonesof adog.Th iswasinterpreted asananimal

sacrifice.

Sp.Iakovides,

Perati

(Athens1970)vol.1p.159;vol.2

pp.32,42,59.

16. Athens, Areopagus (M G I)

Grave I 18:3.Dogboneswerefoundinthefillingearth

over the grave of a cremated woman of middle years

(45-50). Itissuggestedthattheyrepresentpar tof apuri-

ficationrite for the benefitof either the deceasedor the

survivors.

E ' Geometric On

t h e

A reo ~ag u s :

1897,1932,1947,"Hesperia 43(1974)334,362.

17. Athens, Kerameikos (LG 11; 2nd or 3 rd quar ter of

8thc.)

Grave 94.Tw odogsaccompanied theburialof asingle

individual,possiblywithsomechthonicsignificance.

K. Kiibler,

Kerameikos

5.1 (Berl in 1954)25, 269. E.

Smithson,Hesperia 43(1974)334n.27.

18 Volos, Thessaly (6thc.)

GraveinPaspaliaCemetery.Inacistgravelinedathead

andfootwithslabswasfoundasingleindividualwiththe

bonesof adogat his feet.T h eexcavator suggestedth at

theanimaldiedfromgriefforitsmasterandwasburied

withhim,or,morelikely,thatthedogcrawledintofeed

the

corpse

andwasunable

to get

out,

A,

A ~praktika

1909,159-62.

~ ~

POSSIBLE BUT DUBIOUS EX MPLES OF DOG BURI LS

N

HUM N TOMBS

A.GREEK MAINLAND

19.

Leukas

( E H )

Grave R2. Circular gravewhich included the bonesof

sheep,goat,cowanddog,accordingtoWiesner.Theex-

cavator,however, doesnotm entionthe presence ofdog

bones,

W.Dorpfeld,Alt-Ithaka 1(Munich1927)225.J.Wies-

ner,Grab und Jenseits 135,erroneouslycitesDorpfeldp.

220.

20. Vapheio ( L H 11)

TholosTomb.Thetombwasfoundtocontaintheteeth

of severaldogsonthe floor.

Ch . T s o u n ta s an d J . I . M an a t t ,

The Mycenaean Age

(London 1897)152.M. Andronikos,

Totenkult

87.



19841 D O G B U R IA L S I N T H E G R E E K W O R L D 2 5

21. Perati, Attica ( L H I11 C :l ; 1165/60-1075 B.C.)

To mb 36. T race s of a sma ll animal, possibly a dog, were

found with sheep and goat bones and the cremated re-

mains of a human.

Sp. Iakovides,

Perati

vol. 2, pp. 33, 59.

B.

CRETE

22. Praisos (L M I11 or G eometric)

Tholos Tom b A. No hu man skeleton was found, only the

teeth of a m an , as well as bones of an ox an d a dog.

L M 111, according to Pini, but Bosanq uet dated the tomb

to the Geometric Period, and some of the pottery looks

even a little later.

R.C. Bosanquet, "Excavations at Praesos. I,"

BSA

8

(1901-1902) 242. A. Kanta, The Late Minoan Period in

Crete

179. I. Pin i,

Beitrage zur minoischen Griiberkunde

(Wiesbaden 1968) 104.

11.

DOGS BURIED WITH OTHER ANIMALS IN PITS IN

CEMETERIES

CRETE

23. Prinias (uncertain date)

On e or two instances (the reports are contradictory a nd

may represe nt a differing report of the same burial or two

sepa rate ones) of a pit c ontaining one or two horses and a

small animal, possibly a dog, all carefully laid out. The

excavator says the tomb is earlier tha n G eometric, but is

not certain if it is S M or P G .

D Levi, "Atti della Scuola," ASAtene 38 (1976) 321. G

Rizza, "Tombes de Chevaux,"

Acts of the International

Archaeological Symposium The Relations between Cy-

prus and Crete, ca.

2000-500

B.C.

(Nicosia 1979) 295,

322.

24. Knossos, Tekke Cemetery (uncertain date)

Between Tomb F and a Geometric tomb was a bothros

containing a nearly com plete skeleton of a donkey mixed

with dog and cow bones.

Possibly the bothros is associated with Tomb F, which

the excavator dates to the early 9th ce ntury.

H

Catling,

JHS-AR

1976-77, 16.

The Relations be-

tween Cyprus and Crete, ca.

2000-500

B.C.,

322 (Cold-

stream commenting on Rizza's paper).

25.

Knossos, KMF Cemetery

(uncertain date, but before

E O )

Tomb 79. Remains of a small animal, perhaps a dog,

were found above two horse skeletons, which we re them -

selves one above the other in a pit. All the anim als were

found below a secondary burial containing two Early

Orientalizing ash urns and a n umbe r of small pots.

H Catling,

JHS-AR

1978-79, 50.

111.

DOGS BURIED ALONE INTRAMURALLY

GREEK MAINLAND

26. Athens, Agora (4t h c.)

Grave of a dog behind the Stoa of Attalos. A round pit

wa s sunk in the bedrock with walls and floors lined with

clay. Th e dog was laid in it with a large beef bone near its

head.

H.A. Thompson, "Excavations in the Athenian Agora:

1950,"

Hesperia

20 (1951) 52. S. Immerwahr,

Early

Burials from the Agora Cemeteries (Excavations at the

Athenian A gora, Picture Book 1 3, Princeton 1973) last

page.

27. Athens, Areopagus (late Hellenistic, end 2nd c.-

early 1st c. B.C.)

West Slope. Among the ruins of houses and shops was

found a sm all terracotta jar containing the skeleton of a

small dog, accompanied by an unguentarium.

R.S. Young, "An In dustr ial District of Ancient Athens,"

Hesperia

20 (1 95 1) 268 an d n . 131.

IV. DUMPS WITH DOG BONES

GREEK MAINLAND

28. Athens, Agora

(late Hellenistic)

A well in section

AA

at 97/r 362 contained the bones of

175 newborn infants, along with the nearly complete

skulls of over 85 dogs and a scatte ring of sh eep , goat, pig

and horse bones. Th e dogs represent at least three differ-

ent breeds. It is suggested that the dogs and infants were

victims of starv ation or disease.

Associated with Sulla's siege in 84 B .C.?

J.L. Angel, "Skeletal Material from Attica," Hesperia 14

(1 945) 31 1 and n. 73.

V. DOG SACRIFICES

NON-GREEK AREAS

29. Sardis, Lydian Trenchn

(late 7th-early 5th c., possibly

575-525)

Nearly 30 caches were fou nd, each containing four almost

identical pots: a jug, oino choe, skyphos an d shallow bow l,

together with a n iron knife. Each jug contained the bones

of a puppy. The se caches had been placed in small pits,

and they a re interpreted a s the residue of a ritual meal to

Hermes Kandaulas. Although the puppies had been cut

up , there is no indication that they were consumed.

G Hanfmann, "The Fourth Campaign at Sardis

(1961),"

BASOR

166 (Apr. 1962) 8-9; "T he Fifth C am-

paign at Sardis (1962),"

BASOR

170 (Apr. 1963) 10-1 1.

C. Greenewalt , Jr . ,

Ritual Dinners in Early Historic

Sardis

(Berkeley 1978).

30. Motya, Sicily

(uncertain da te, but 5th c. and later)

A Punic cemetery was found to contain the cremated

bones of infants and animals, mostly young domestic an -

imals (lambs, kids, calves, puppies, kittens and a mon-

key). Th e bones of each creature were placed in a jar and

buried, and sometimes stelai were erected over them.

The se a re interpreted as victims of a ritual sacrifice.

J

Whitaker,

Motya

(London 1921) 131, 257-60.

MYCEN E N ND HOMERIC PR CTICES

T h e e a r li e st d o g b u r i a l s so f a r u n co v e red i n t h e

e a s te r n M e d i t e r r a n e a n w e r e m a d e o n C y p r u s i n t h e



26 LESLIE PRESTON DAY

[AJA 88

Early and M idd le Bronze Ages9; they ar e relatively

uncommon among the animal sacrifices which regu-

larly accompanied hum an burials. T h e practice of dog

sacrifice, however, seems to have died out after M C I

(1850-1800 B.C .), many cen turies before the custom

appeared in Greece. Dog sacrifice was also practiced

in the Late Bronze Age by the Hittites,lo but there is

no evidence that the custom appeared earlier than i n

G~~~~~

or that there

was any

influence on the M ~

naeans f rom ~~i~ ~ i~h~~~ is, the n,~ no indication ,

that the practice of dog burial was imported into

Greece f rom ei ther Anatol ia or Cyprus, and thus

there

is no

reason

to

suppose

that it was

anyth ing

oth-

er tha n a spontane ous an d indigenous development.

However the custom originated, it spread widely

throughout Mycenaean Greece. T h e majority of rec-

ognized dog burials occurs in the chamber tombs and

tholoi of th e L H I11 period

(nos.

9-14). Mo st of these

are in ch amber tombs (nos. 9 ,1 1 ,1 2 ,1 4) , wi th on ly a

few recognized in tholoi

(nos.

10, 1 3), a less common

grave type. Th e canid skeletal materia l in these tombs

was

lound i n the main

either On

t he floor

9 Or in a pit

t he

floor (nos lo

15). At D endra

(no.

10) the excavator suggested that

the bones of the dog, which w ere fou nd together with

hum an rem ains in a pit, represented a sacrifice of the

anim als and serv ants of the dead person, but they may

represent debris an

ear

lier burial . In some instances, the dog rema ins were

found above the human skeletons

(nos.

12, 1 3), sug-

gesting a sacrifice of a nim als made after the bu rials.

In a single case

(no.

11) the dog was actually placed

on a bench in the ch amb er close to the corpse it accom-

panied, but usually such care was not taken with the

animal.

The Mycenaean burials which dogs accompanied

were usually inhumations, but in two late examples

the hum an rem ains had been cremated. At Perati (no.

15) the burn ed bones of a dog were found in a cist

with three persons, only one of whom had been cre-

H . Cassimatis, Les rites funeraires i Chypre, R D A C 1 97 3 ,

116-66 esp.

122-23.

O

C. Greenewal t , J r . , Rttual Dtnners tn Early Htstorzc Sardzs

(Berkeley 1978) 41-42; N. Robertson, Hitti te Ritual at Sardis,

Classical Antzqutty I (19 82) 122-40; J .C . MacQueen , Th e Hzttztes

and thezr Contemporaries in Asia Mtn or

(London

1975) 137 ,

dis-

cusses dog sacrifices of the L ate Bron ze Age at Bogazkoy, wher e the

dog is seen as a companion to the dead.

I A. Persson, Th e Royal Tom bs at Dendra near Midea ( L u n d

1 9 3 1 ) 6 9 ;

G . M y lo n as ,

Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age

(Prince-

ton 1966) 128-29.

Z

G . Mylonas, Homeric and Mycenaean Burial Customs, A J A

mated; presumably the dog had been placed on the

pyre w ith th e deceased.

Correlation between the presence of dogs and the

sex, age or statu s of the individuals they accompanied

is difficult because the evidence is incomplete. In the

few examples where we do know about the human

remains, no clear pattern emerges. T h e th010~ t Oxy-

lithos (no. 13) contained remains of a wom an, a youth

and a boy, all with anim al bones over the burials. T h e

~ ~ -

cist in To mb I at Perati (no. 15) held the rem ains of a

youth and two 50-year-olds, but it is not clear what

their sex was. O n the sta tus of the ind ividuals there is

more information, based on the material placed with

the bodies in the graves, alth oug h the circumstances of

finding do not always present a clear picture. With

the exception of the tholos tombs (nos.10, 13) , the dog

burials do not seem to accompany particularly weal-

thy individuals or to be a part of royal or even aristo-

cratic funer ary rites.

It would be of interest too to know if the breed of

dog buried in the tombs is always the same, or whe th-

er more th an one breed is represented. In particular,

the determination

of

the breed might give information

on the functi on the dogs performed in life, which

might also shed some light on the reasons

for

their

burial. No such information is available, however,

and one can only hope that f utu re excavators

of

dog

burials will

recover

these kinds

of

da ta .

Although no thorough study

of

these dog burials

has been made, their occurrence in M~~~~~~~~raves

has been noted'2 and linked with the passage in the

n i a d whic h describes the funera l rites for patroklos.i3

He re , after making the customary sacrifices of sheep

and cows, and having wrapped the corpse in their fat

and piled the skinned carcasses on the pyre with of-

ferings of honey and oil, Achilles made some further

and unusu al sacrifices for his friend. H e killed four

horses, two of P atroklos' nine dogs and twelve Tr oja n

youths and placed them as sacrifices on the funeral

pyre. The dogs are described as

rpa rc f i cs

that is,

dogs fed from the table, and th eir th roats w ere cut.14

52 (1 948) 72-73; Mylonas (su pra n . 1 I ) 1 1 6 ; M . Andron ikos , T o -

tenkult (Archaeologta Homerzca

III .W, Gottingen

1968) 85 , 87;

D .

Kurtz and J . Boardman , Greek Burial C ustoms (London 1971) 66;

E.

Vermeule, Aspects of Death zn Early Greek Art and Poetry

(Berkeley 1979) 58-61. See also a num ber of excavators, e.g., A.

Keramopoulos,

Deltron 3 ( 191 7) 137;

Persson (supra n.

1 1 ) 6 9 .

I l t a d 2 3 .1 7 1 - 7 7 .

l Th e word used, Gccporop-rjuas could also mean with their

heads cut off ' : so G . Autenreith , A Homertc Dictzonary (N o rm an

1958) 72 . Th is meanin g would possibly connect the rite with tha t

observed at Asine, where only the head of the dog wa s placed in the

tomb:

0.

Frodin and A.W. Persson, Astne (Stockholm 1938) 358.



984 DOG BURIALS I N T H E G R E E K W O R LD 27

The sacrifice of humans and animals is not a regular

feature of Homeric burial practice; it occurs only in

connection with the funeral of Patroklos and is not

mentioned in the description of the burials of other

heroes.15 It is not clear if this practice reflects the M y -

cenaean custom or that of Homer's age, but there are

only a few points of similarity between Homer's ac-

count and the dog burials of the L ate H elladic period.

In the absence of any contemporary written doc-

umen ts referring to the beliefs underlying th e practice

of dog burial, scholars can only speculate on the basis

of clues given in Homer or references in writers of

later an tiqu ity, which give indications of attitudes or

beliefs involving dogs an d the ir sacrifice. Since H om er

is the author who is closest to the period when dog

burials were regularly made, the passage in the

liad

has been the usual basis for explaining the practice.16

Mylonas suggests that the horses and dogs sacri-

ficed on the p yre of Pat rokl os we re considered pa rt of

the belongings of the dead m an and, like the other be-

longings, were placed on the pyre to give pleasure

and comfort to the depa rting psyche on the tri p to the

U n d e r ~ o r l d . ' ~n dro nik osl* a nd V e r m e ~ l e ' ~gree

that the animals were m eant to accompany the dead

on their journey. T h e jars of oil and honey placed

with the body on the pyre a re similar sorts of posses-

sions, but they might also have been intended to pro-

vide sustenance on the journey. Scholz ha s suggested

that the animals were m eant to serve their masters in

the U n d e r w ~ r l d , ~ ~ut, as Vermeule points out, the

anim al bones wer e neither collected from the fire nor

b ur ie d al on g w i th th os e of P a t r o k l o ~ , ~ ~fact which

suggests that their function was completed after the

cremation. Besides, the an imals never a ppe ar in an y

renderings of the afterlife in H ades. A nother possibil-

ity, put forth by Kurtz a nd Board man, is that the dogs

At Archanes, also, there is evidence for the severing of the dog's

head: J Sakellarakis, Prakttka 1966, 178.

l G.

Mylonas,

AJ A

52 (1948) 59.

l 6

T he Linear B tablets are so far silent on the subject of dogs,

although the presence of dogs is implicit in the use of the word

kun cigetai (huntsmen): J . Chadwick, Documents tn Mycenaean

Greek2

(Cambridge 1973) 132.

Mylonas (supra n. 15) 59; cf. also Mylonas (supra n. 11) 116.

Andronikos (supra n. 12) 85.

l 9 Vermeule (supra n. 12) 61; also

J

Maringer , Der Hun d in

der Mythologie der vorgeschichtlichen Menschen,

Acta Praehtsto

rica et Archaeologica

11-12 (1980-1981) 41, for dogs found in hu-

man graves in northern Europe.

20 H .

Scholz,

Der Hu nd in griechisch romischen Magie u nd Re

ligton

(Berlin 193 7) 37.

2 l

Vermeule (supra n. 12) 59.

2 2

Kurtz and Boardm an (supra n. 12) 66.

2 3 E.

Smithson, A Geometric Cemetery on the Areopagus: 1897,

1932, 1947,

Hesperia

43 (1974) 334. See also M .P. Nilsson,

Ge

were not offerings, but simply pets buried with their

masters.22 f this is so, it suggests a sentim ental regard

for dogs which does not seem in keeping with t he atti -

tudes toward them expressed in various Mycenaean

media, such as the scenes of hunting which became

popular in wall paintings of Mycenaean palaces at

Tiryns and Pylos at approximately the same time

when dog burial began to be practiced.

Exam ination of later Greek thou ght may aid in un-

derstanding the significance of dog burial in the

Mycenaean period.

Smithson has proposed that the

dog burial over the grave of a woman on the Areo-

pagus in Athens no. 16 may have been connected

with some purification rites for a woman who died in

childbirth, either for the deceased herself or for the

protection of the survivors.23Although we have no

contemporary written evidence to support the theory

that dog sacrifice was practiced as a purification rite,

there is evidence for this practice in later antiq uity .24

In classical Greece dogs were considered sacred to

certain deities, and performed both cleansing and the-

rapeutic functions either alive or dead. Dogs, particu-

larly puppies, were sacred to Hek ate an d were sacri-

ficed to her.25Through this connection with Hekate

the dogs had chthonic associations, which may be re-

lated to the sacrifice of dogs as part of a burial ritual.

T h e association of pupp y sacrifices with He kate m ay

be pertinent to the K avousi dog burials, which include

a number of puppies. Dog sacrifices were also part of

th e cult of A res /E ny alio s a t S ~ a r t a , ~ ~here they also

seem to have had a purificatory significance. T h e dog

would remove the pollution which came from a

wound inflicted by weapons, a rite which Scholz con-

nects with both w ar and h unting.27 Dogs were also

used in parts of the Gree k world for purifying whole

armies .28T hi s connection of the dog with the p urifi-

schtchte dergriechischen Religion

2 (Munich 1955) 95, 104.

24 T h e most complete analysis of the role of the dog in later Gre ek

religion is by Scholz (supra n. 20). See also the following: Greene-

walt (sup ra n. 10); M . Leach,

God Had a Dog

(New Brunswick,

N . J .

1961); L. Malten, Da s Pferd im Toteng lauben, JdI 29

(1914) 236-38; N.J. Zagan iaris, Sacrifices de chiens dans I'anti-

quite classique,

Platon

27 (1975) 322-29.

S Greene walt (sup ra n. 10) 41 n. 4 and 43-45; Scholz (supra n.

20) 40-43; Leach (sup ra n. 24) 18 and 21; Nilsson (supra n. 23)

724; S. Karouzou, 'An Und erworld Scene on a Black-figured Le-

kythos,

J H S

92 (1972) 64-73, esp. 66-67. T he chthonic associa-

tion of dogs can also be seen in Kerberos, the watchdog of Hades:

see Scholz (supra n. 20) 29-37.

26 Scholz (sup ra n. 20) 16-18; Greenewalt (supra n. 10) 41;

Leach ( sup ra n. 24) 182. Pausanias (3.14.9) says the same ritual

was practiced at Kolophon.

27 Scholz (supra n 20) 16.

28

In Boiotia and Macedonia, for example, a dog was killed and

split in half, then the whole army was purified by marching be-



2

8 LESLIE PRESTON DAY

[AJA

88

cation of w arr ior s is significant in light of the fact that

the earliest mention of dog sacrifice in literature is at

the funeral of Patroklos, a fallen warrior. A third

deity associated with dogs is Eilioneia/Eileithyia, es-

pecially in he r cult at A r g ~ s . ~ ~ere, dogs and cocks

were sacrificed to ease a woman in childbirth. Dogs

were considered to have other healing powers as well,

whethe r alive or dead, especially for pregn ant women,

but also for people suffering from various illnesses.

Dogs were present in the sanctuaries of Asklepios30

and were thought to cure blindness or abscesses by

licking the eye or the w ound. T he y wer e also used in

the diagnosis of mysterious diseases; they were put

into contact with the afflicted person, then killed and

examined because they were thou ght to have taken on

the disease themselves. T hu s, the dog could have

connections with disease and childbirth through the

cults of Asklepios and Eileithyia, with war through

the cult of Enyalios, and with the Underworld and

death through the association with Hekate. In all

these cases a purification was accomplished through

the sacrifice of a dog.

Although not found in the mainstream of the Greek

world, dog sacrifices are known to have occurred as

part of religious rituals in neighboring parts of the

M e d i t e r r a n e a r ~ . ~ ~t Sardis no. 29 puppies were

killed, dismembered and interred, although not ap-

parently eaten, as part of a ritual banq uet to Herm es

K a n d a ~ l a s . ~ ~n M otya near Sicily

no.30),

puppies

and other young animals and infants were burned a nd

placed in jars in a special cemetery, often w ith grave

markers above them; this practice must have been

par t of a sacrifice.34 n both these cases, however, the

deposition of the animals was remarkable; puppies

were used rather than mature canids, and either the

burial w as made in a special area or the animals were

neatly laid out with the other remains of the ritual.

tween the two halves of the animal. A similar rite was practiced

among the Hittites and possibly the Persians; see also Herodotos

7.39. Young dogs were preferred for this rite. See Scholz (supra n.

20) and 0 . Masson, A propos d'un r i tuel hi tt i te pour la lustration

d'une armke, R H R 137 (1950) 5-25.

q Scholz (supra n. 20) 1 5,2 2; Green ewalt (sup ra n. 10) 41; Nils-

son (supra n. 23) 95.

Scholz (supra n. 20) 13-16.

Scholz (supra n. 20) 13; see also E.E . Burriss, Th e Place of

the Dog in Superstition as revealed in Latin Literature, C P 3 0

(1935) 32-35.

3 Dog burials are also found in northern Europe: see Maringer

(supra n . 19) 37-41. Ma ring er discusses dog sacrifices in Europe

from Sweden to Italy and as far east as South Russia from the N eo-

lithic Period (7000-2000 B.C.) to the 5th century A.C. Th ere ar e a

num ber of examples of dog burials from the Neolithic period. Th e

dogs accompanied huma ns a nd we re buried at the foot of the dead,

in the grave itself, or over the grave, and they were often cremated

along with the human dead. Occasionally, parts of the dog were

Th er e is no indication of any treatme nt of dog buria ls

in the Greek world that would suggest a similar spe-

cia1 rit ual .

Finally, a suggestion was made by Scholz that the

dogs were buried with their

masters/mistresses to

serve as gu ardians or watchdogs for the dead.35 H e

also suggested that w hen th e dog wa s not actually bu r-

ied with th e dead, a figural representation of the dog

could be considered to have the sam e function, such as

that on the box from the Fifth Shaft Grave at M ycenae

or the funeral markers in the form of dogs on later

graves. T h e idea of the dog as a gua rdian is not incom-

patible with the concept of the dog as a com panion for

the dead on the journey to the Und erworld , but there

is no evidence available to support this interpretatio n.

LATER GRE EK ATTITUDE S TOWARD DOGS

We can never know for certain the reasons for the

sacrifice of dogs in the La te B ronze Age tombs. I n the

absence of contemporary documents we must look to

Ho me r, where dogs and horses accompanied the dead

man on the pyre an d hence on the journey to the U n-

derworld , possibly to ward off evil. Th er e is no certain

indication in Homer that such animal sacrifices also

had a purificatory function, but the possibility exists

and is given weight by the later Greek writers who

repo rt the use of dogs in purification rites. Co rrela ting

the examples of dog burials with information on the

sex, age and physical condition of the perso ns they ac-

companied might give a clue as to whet her or not their

sacrifice was part of a purification rite. If dogs could

be show n to have been buried most often w ith women

of childbearing age, they might indicate a rite for

women who died in childbirth. Dog bones found with

a man who was obviously a warrior might suggest a

purification rite for one who had died in battle, possi-

bly one who was not p roperly purified before battle.36

missing. In the Bronze Age (1800-800 B.C.) dog sacrifices were

made at sacred sp rings and bogs, although dogs also continued to be

buried with individuals. After the Bronze Age, dogs are found

buried u nder the foundations of buildings, buried intram urally, or

buried along with an individual. Th ere ar e many instances in Swe-

den, Denmark and Germany of dogs and horses accompanying

their hum an masters in the grave, as in Viking ship burials.

For references to dog burials in the ancient Near East, see P.

~ s t r ~ m ,

he Middle Cypriote Bronze ge

(Swedish C yprus Ex pe-

dition 4.1B) 275 n. 6.

Dog burial was also practiced in prehistoric China: see

J

Trei s tman,

The Prehistory of China

(New York 1972) 112, 113,

132.

3 3

Greenewalt (supra n. 10) 50-54.

J

Whitaker,

Motya

(London 1921) 131,257-60.

3 5 Scholz (supra n.

20

37.

6 Patroklos died wearing ano ther man's arm or and for this rea-

son may have needed extraord inary rites.



19841 D O G B U R IA LS I N T H E G R E E K W O R L D

29

Dogs might also have been buried with individuals

who died of disease, since in later times dogs were

used for diagnosis and healing. W hile these are inter-

esting possibilities, nothing in the deposition of the

dogs from this early period gives any indication of a

special religious ritual.

Although the motives which led to dog burials are

uncertain, an examination of the circumstances of

those bur ials points u p the attitudes of the G reeks to

their dogs. A thorough study of Greek attitudes to-

wa rd dogs lies beyond th e scope of this a rticle , but t he

changes in the treatment of dogs after death suggest

something about their position w hile

alive.37T he cus -

tom of inte rring dogs, wh ethe r to accompany the dead

to the Underworld or as part of a purification ritual,

shows a consistent attitu de towards dogs, one which is

not sentimental, but implies a reciprocal relationship

between h uman s and dogs.

Before the Late Bronze Age we have no evidence

for special burial a rran gem ents for dogs, or any indi-

cation of this reciprocal relationship. There is clear

evidence tha t canids constituted pa rt of the food sup-

ply of the Early Bronze Age people of Lerna and

Troy ,38but appa rentl y the eating of dogs petered out

after this period, and by the L ate Bronze Age it would

appear that dogs were considered animals who per-

formed useful functions for people, alive or dead.

O ur earliest literary source for the Greek attitude

to dogs is, of course, the Ho me ric poems, and we find

in Homer an ambivalence toward dogs which contin-

ued throughout Greek civilization. Unfortu nately, we

do not know if this atti tude belonged just to H om er's

era or was handed dow n from the Mycenaean age or

the intervening Dark Ages. Dogs were later consid-

ered to be unclean, possibly because of their unsocia-

ble behavior (public urination and copulation) and

For the whole subject of the role of the dog in the ancient

world, see 0 . Keller,

Dte anttke Tterwelt

1 (Leipzig 1909) 91-151

and R.H.A. Mer len , De Cantbus: Dog and Hound in Anttgutty

(London 1971), which, however, lacks references. See also S.H.

Lonsdale, Attitudes towards Animals in Ancient Greece,

Greece

a n d R o m e 26 (1979) 149-52, as well as Scholz (supra n. 20).

Greenewalt (su pra n. 10) 31, n. 1; N. G . Gejvall ,

Lerna: The

Fauna

(Princeton 1969) 117-18.

3 9 Scholz (supra n. 20) 7; Lonsdale (supra n. 37) 151-52.

4 Iliad 1.4; see also Priam in Book 22.66-76.

4 1 A good exam ple of the am bivalence and the juxtaposition of

two contradictory views of dogs can be seen in the burial of Patro-

klos

Iliad

23.173-83). H ere Achilles sacrifices two of Patroklos'

faithful dogs on the funeral pyre, yet he boasts that he will give

Hektor's body to the scavenger dogs rather than giving it proper

burial.

4 2 Odyssey

17.292-322.

4 Kurtz and Boardman (supra n. 12) 135-36. For stelai with

men and dogs, see B.S. Ridgway, The M an-and-D og Stelai ,

/ d l

86 (1971) 60-79. Ridgway suggests (p. 76) that the dog motif en-

their eating of carrio n39 ; n Ho me r there is great fear

of dogs defiling the dead on the battlefield, a fear

which is voiced at the very opening of the

Iliad

and

repeated on num erous occasions.40 Conversely, dogs

are viewed as loyal companions, fed from the tab le,41

and a sentimental attachment to dogs can be seen in

the

Odyssey

in the description of faithful old Argos,

Odysseus' dog, who recognizes his master after 20

years and dies happily.42

T hi s rather sentimental attitude continues into the

Classical and H ellenistic periods, along with the idea

that dogs are unclean yet have both sacred and th era-

peutic powers. The dog became a common represen-

tation on grave stelai from the late sixth century on,

and sc ulptured dogs were often set up as grave mar k-

e r ~ . ~ ~h e sentimental attitu de toward pet dogs can be

seen especially in the burial of the dog with its beef

bone behind the Stoa of Attalos in the Athe nian A gora

no.

26).44By the Late Hellenistic period, pets were

buried and may even have been given their own

gravestones and epigramm atic epitaphs.4 5

T h e dog sacrifices in the Late Helladic tombs thus

show a different attitude toward dogs from that of ei-

ther earlier or later periods. Dogs seem to have been

valued for their usefulness in the hunt, as guardians

or as com panions, but n owh ere do we see the sort of

sentimental regard for them as pets displayed by the

later Greeks.

D O G S A N D D O G B U R I A L O N C R E T E

Whatever the reasons for the custom, dog burials

seem to have spread from Late Helladic Greece into

the island of Crete in the L M

I

period.46Th e ea r -

liest known dog burials on Crete have been found in

L M I cham ber tombs and tholoi

nos.

5-8), the ma-

jority in the more common ch amber tombs nos. 5 7

tered Greece as an Orientalizing feature, but dogs appeared on a

numb er of Geometric pots and probably became simply more popu-

lar during the Orientalizing period. Her suggestion that the man-

and-do g stele originated as a type in East Greece is reiterated by H .

Hiller,

Iontsche Grabreliefs der ersten Halfte des Jahrhunderts u

C h r . I s tM t t t -B H 12, Tiibingen 1975) 138. One regrets the lack of

information about dog burials in Asia Mino r.

4 4

This sentimental attitude is not limited to the Greek world.

Compare the burial of a pet dog and its bone above the grave of a

young boy in 4th millennium A1 Ubaid: I L N Sept. 11, 19 48, 304,

fig. 8.

4 5 See G. Herrl inger,

Totenklage um Tiere in der antiken Dicht-

ung (Stu ttgart 193 0), for a list of these epigrams for dogs.

4 6 The earliest Mainland material seems to antedate that on

Crete, although one cannot be absolutely certain that the practice

began on the mainland and spread to the island. There is no evi-

dence for burials of dogs there before the destruction of Minoan

sites around 1450 B.C., so this seems to be a Mycenaean custom

which spread to Crete.



30 LESLIE PR ESTON DAY [AJA 88

8). As on the Ma inl an d, the dogs were deposited ei-

ther in the main chamb er (nos. 5,8) or in the dromos

(nos.

6,7) ,

but none h as been found in a pit . Th e dogs

found in the blocking of the doorway of Tholos B at

Archanes (no.

6)

and in the dromos of the Gournes

tomb (no.

7)

probably represent sacrifices of the an i-

mals after the burial . For these Cretan examples

there is no evidence for the age a nd sex of the individ-

uals buried with t he dogs, and the objects found in the

tomb suggest that th e social status of these people was

not particularly high.

Since the custom of dog buria l seems to have been

introduced into Crete from the M ainla nd, there is no

reason to suppose that the motives and atti tudes be-

hind th e L M I11 practice were different from those of

the M ycenae ans. A similar reciprocal relationship be-

tween Cretans and dogs can be seen on representa-

tions in M ino an a rt . As early as the Early Bronze Age

dogs are depicted reclining on pyxis lids from Zakro

a n d a to m b o n M o ~ h l o s . ~ 'ogs frequently ap pea r on

M ino an sealstones, mostly of the Second Palace P eri-

od, and are depicted as hunt ing48 or accon~ panying

hum an or sacred figures.49Often the dogs are shown

wearing collars, an indication that they are domesti-

cated. Rhyta in the form of dogs' heads were also

used, both on Crete a nd on the Ma inlan d.5o Dogs,

then, were apparently appreciated for their useful-

ness, and they may also have been regarded as pos-

sessing special properties connected with religion,

since rhyta were formed in the shape of dogs' heads.

There is no evidence, however, that dogs were re-

garded sentimentally.

After the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization

dog burial continued to be practiced on Crete, but

there wa s a major change in the circumstances of bur -

ial. At Knossos and Prinias (nos. 23-25) canids were

buried in the Sub-Minoan and Protogeometric peri-

ods, not with a n individual in the same tomb , but sep-

arately in pits not connected with the hu ma n grave. It

is nearly impossible to associate these animal burials

with the grave to which they belonged, and dating is

therefore difficult. In two instances (nos. 23, 25), the

dogs accompanied a pair of horses, and with th e third

4

Zak ro pyxis : Pla ton, Zakros. Th e Discoz~ery f a Lost Palace

qfAricient Crete (N ew York 1971) 69. h lochlos pyxis: Sp. h iar ina -

tos, Crete and ,21ycenae (N ew York 1960) pl . 6 and p . 11 6.

4

A .

Evans ,

P.11

4 (1935) 524-25.

Evans,

P.11

2 (1928) 764-66.

5 0 See G Karo , Mino i sche Rhy ta , J d I 26 (1911) 262; J de

Mo t. Vases egPens en forme d 'animaux, R A ser . 4 .4 (1904)

201-24; R . Laffineur. Le rhyton PgPen en forme de tPte de chien

(no. 24) a nearly complete donkey skeleton was

found. Often care was taken with the laying out of the

animals (nos.

23, 25).

It is in this group that the Ka-

vousi dog burials should also be placed; although

clearly associated with a partic ular tomb, they ar e re-

lated chronologically an d geographically to the K nos-

sos and Prinias burials , and they are also accom-

panied by donkey bones.

These Early Iron Age dog burials can be inter-

preted as a survival on Crete of a Mycenaean tradi-

tion which had disappeared elsewhere, and, indeed,

this survival can be seen in other elements of the

burial practice. T h e tradition, although it did sur-

vive the collapse of M ycenae an cultu re, continued in a

modified form, in wh ich horses or donkeys were also

sacrificed an d the an imals w ere placed in pits outside

the grave itself. T h e details of these Cr eta n Iron Age

dog burials, in particul ar the interme nt of both horses

an d dogs and often the practice of cremation, seem to

correspond m ore closely to Hom er's account of the fu-

nera l of Patroklos th an do the circumstances of buria l

in the Mycenaean chamber and tholos tombs. If

in-

deed, Hom er w as describing a n actual burial custom,

however uncom mon, it seems to be not the M ycenae -

an funeral practice b ut the modified form which sur -

vived into the Dark Ages. Whether Homer is refer-

ring to the actual Cretan custom or its survival else-

where is uncertain; no other similar burials of the

Early Iron Age have yet been found, but the custom

may well have survived elsewhere.

POST MYCENAEAN DOG BURIALS ON THE

MAINLAND

Athens has produced two examples of dog burials

of Geo metric date (nos.

16, 17),

an d in both cases the

dogs were placed in or above the grave, like the

L H

I11 examples, not in pits nearby as on Crete. The

grave on the Areopagus (no. 16) contained the cre-

mated r em ains of a wom an of middle age, but the dog

bones above her had not been burned. In addition to

these two exam ples of actual dog bu rial, there a re pos-

sible representations of dog sacrifices on at least one

Geom etric vase,52 nd dogs are often found in prothe-

des htuskes Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Bulletzn des M use es

Ro ya u. ~d Art et d Histoire ser . 6 ,

45

(1973) 291-99.

5

T h e use of tholos tombs, for example , cont inued in Ea st Cre te ,

a l though the tholoi were not so monumental as their Mycenaean

predecessors.

j J Boardm an, Att ic Geometr ic Vase Scenes: Old and New ,

JHS 86 (1966) 1-5.



984

DOG BURIALS I N T H E G R EE K W O R L D 31

sis scenes on other Geometric vessels. On these pots

they are shown as pets or guardians, sometimes as

hu nte rs, an d almost never as scavenger .̂^^

After the Ge ometric period the custom of dog buria l

disappears almost entirely. Th e animal found at the

tomb near Volos

no.

18 might represent a deliberate

buria l, but no certain examples can be found from the

Arch aic period or the fifth centu ry. Although this lack

of evidence does not mea n that the practice wa s aba n-

doned, it does indicate that at the very most it was

rare. T h e single dog burial from the fou rth century is

quite different from the earlier types: an an imal bu r-

ied alone, intramurally, and not within a cemetery

no.26 . T h is is obviously the bu rial of a beloved pet,

as the beef bone at its mouth so poignantly indicates,

and the dog buried in a jar on the Areopagus during

the Hellenistic period

no.

27 is also a pet. T h e well

containing the large nu mbe r of dogs and infants no.

28 seems to have received the cleanup from some

single catastrophe, possibly a plague or starvation,

and has no connection with the earlier burials. I was

able to find no exam ples of dog buria ls after the H el-

lenistic period, but their existence is suggested by the

many epitap hs for dogs which have come down to us

in the literary reco rd.54

ON LUSIONS

T h e practice of dog burial in Greece seems to have

spru ng up on the Mycenaean mainland, probably in

the L H 1IIA:l period, but possibly as early as L H 11,

if the dog teeth from the Vapheio To m b no.20 rep-

resent the interment of a whole anima l. How the cus-

tom originated is unclear, but it does not seem to have

been imported from outside the Greek world. Once

begun, it spread widely throughout Greece and into

Cre te. Although the sacrifice of dogs was cer tainly not

a regula r feature of Myc enaean f une rary rites, it was

employed on a number of occasions with burials of

men and w omen of various social classes in tholos and

chamber tombs. When cremation began to be prac-

ticed, dogs continued to be sacrificed, and the animal

5 For hun t ing dogs and foxes, see P .E . Arias and M . Hirm er ,

A

Htstory ofGreek Vase Paintin g (tr . and revised by

B.

Shefton, Lon-

don 1962) pl. 6 (Boston M F A no. 25.42).

54 Obviously, more dogs were buried than archaeology would in-

dicate, to judge from th e epigra ms on tombs of dogs recorded in the

literary tradition: see Herrlinger (supra n. 45). These epigrams,

however, may have been literary exercises rather than records of

actual stones and may represent an atti tude toward dogs rather

tha n an actual practice.

5 5 Th e burial of horses, without th e dogs, survived on Cy prus : see

Kurtz and Boardman (supra n . 12 ) 186 , 320 ;

V.

Karageorghis, Sa

lamis tn Cyprus

(London 1969) 8-10 and 27-99.

could be either burned or interred. Without written

evidence we cannot know the reason why dogs were

sacrificed by the Mycenaeans, but the Homeric pas-

sage indicates that they accompanied the dead in the

journey to the Underw orld, possibly serving as guar d-

ians, possibly for purification, to judge from later

practices.

After the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, and

durin g the ensuing D ar k Ages, the custom of interring

animals as part of the funeral ceremony was kept

alive on Cr ete , a s w ell as on C y p r ~ s . ~ ~he separation

of the animals from the humans on Crete, however,

represents an important new development. Another

new feature is the presence of horses or donkeys,

which perhaps Homer recalls in description of the

animal sacrifices which accompanied the funeral rites

for Patroklos. A few dog burials were made in Athens

in the Geo metric Period, and others ar e possibly rep-

resented on Attic Geometric pottery, but the animals

were placed in or above the tomb an d were not accom-

panied by horses. These burials may well represent a

survival of the Mycenaean custom, as on Crete, or

they may have been reintroduced from e l ~ e w h e r e . ~ ~

After the Ge ometric P eriod , the practice of dog sac-

rifice disappears, and only a few burials of beloved

pets are found. The dogs which are represented as

faithful pets and guardians on gravestones and the

sculptured dogs used as grave markers may have

taken over the same role previously held by the sacri-

ficed animal, but certainly they represen t a m ore sen-

timental attitu de toward dogs which can also be seen

in the later creation of fune rary epigra ms for dogs in

Hellenistic and R om an times. Lite rary sources, how-

ever, show contradictory feelings about dogs; the dog

is also seen as unclean , yet powerful for therape utic or

purificatory purposes. The well deposit from the

Athenian Agora of dogs and infants represents an ex-

ception to the sentimen tal att itud e towa rd dogs, but it

may res ult from th e disposal of victims of an e xtra or-

dinar y misfortune, such as plague or starvation.

T h e dog burials found a t Kavousi do not fit neatly

56 Th er e is, however, a gap of several hundred years between the

examples of dog burials at P erati an d those in Athens. Possibly the

practice of dog sacrifice was anothe r element of the rene wal of in-

terest in Mycenaean culture which might have accompanied the

rise of hero cults in the 8th century, and which may be connected

with th e promulgation of the Homeric poems: seeJ .N. Coldstream,

Hero Cults in the Age of Hom er, JHS 97 (1977) 8-17. I t is un -

fortunate th at the re is so li t tle evidence for this period from East

Greece. This Mycenaean custom and many others may well have

been kept alive in the East G reek settlements and reintroduced into

the Main land at a la ter t ime.



32

L E S L I E P R E S T O N D A Y

[AJA 88

into this pa ttern. T he ir closest parallels in date and

location ar e, of course, the dog burials at K nossos and

Prin ias, which, like the Kavousi tomb, contained don-

key or horse bones. Th e anim als at Kavousi, however,

were not laid out so neatly, but instead give the im-

pression of having been thr ow n into the pit uncerem o-

niously. At Kavousi, furthermo re, the animals w ere

thrown into a pit below a tomb, rather than a pit out-

side the grave itself. There are, in addition, larger

numbers of dogs represented in the Kavousi burials,

and th e presence of puppies finds no parallels on

Cre te or elsewhere in the Greek w orld. It is quite pos-

sible that th e Kavousi anim als were deposited for rea-

sons different from those which motivated dog burials

elsewhere. Th e closest parallel for the num bers of an-

imals and the way they were thrown into a pit is the

deposit in the well in the Athenia n A gora, and possi-

bly the Kavousi dogs represent a cleanup from a

plague or some other natural disaster, a disaster

which may also have claimed the person(s) buried in

the tomb. T h e presence of pupp ies, however, may also

suggest a religious ritual, as at Sardis or Motya, al-

though the puppies at Kavousi were not given the

kind of special and careful burial found at these sites.

Anothe r possible explana tion

is

that the animals were

sacrificed before the burial was made, in connection

wit h some kind of purification rite. We cannot know

at present the exact reason for the dog burials at Ka-

vousi, but whatever it may have been, they provide a

new example of an unusual tradition of Late Bronze

Age and Early Iron Age Greece, an example with

some peculiar features which may suggest that the

animals were sacrificed for reasons different from

those which normally motivated dog burials.

DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICAL STUDIES

THE COLLEGE OF WOOSTER

WOOSTER O H I O

44691

ADDENDUM

Wal ter Burkert's article, Itinerant Diviners and Magi-

cians: A Neglected Elemen t in Cul tural Contacts, in

R.

Hagg ed. ,

Th e Greek Renaissance of the Etghth Century

B.C.: Traditton and Innovation

(Skrifter Athens

4.30,

Stockholm 1983) 115-19, appeared too late to be incorpor-

ated into this discussion. Burkert (p.

118)

mentions three

Babylonian bronze figurines portraying a ma n followed by

a large dog which were found at the Samian Heraion and

dat e to the first half of the 7th century H Kyrieleis, Baby-

lonische Bronzen im Heraion von Samos, Jd I 94 19791

32-48). Burkert believes that the figurines are connected

with the Sum ero-Babylonian healing goddess Gula , the

great doctor

assugalatu

whose worship involved dog sacri-

fice, and suggests that her cult had an early influence in

Greece on the cult of Asklepios and possibly also of Apollo.

Such a n influence could also have motivated s ome of th e dog

burials, so that it would be important to know when this

cult m ight have been introduced into Greece.



FIG.

3 .

Sealing from Persepolis showing a Persian trireme with

the ram turned upward 5th-4th c.

B.C.).

After

L

Casson, Ships

and Seamanship fig.

105)

FIG.

2 . Ship models from the tomb of Tutan kha me n. After H

FIG.4

Sho re attack scene of the m iniatu re fresco from W est

Carter, Tomb

of

Tut Ankh. Amen 3, pl. 63

House, Akrotiri, The ra. After S Marinatos, Thera 6, pl. 7

FIG. Kavousi. Vronda, Tom b X. Dog skeletons at top of pit

FIG.6 . Kavousi. Vronda, Tom b X. Dog skeletons at top of pit,

closeup