“Such animals had to be fed to survive, sometimes with special foods in the case of the almost-toothless animals.”
The pet cemetery was discovered 10 years ago just outside the city walls under a Roman rubbish dump, although it was unclear at first what the archaeologists had discovered.
After the first 100 animals were unearthed, the researchers published their findings in a 2016 paper.
The experts could not initially tell whether they had found a cemetery or a dumping ground for dead animals.
Subsequent discoveries, however, made it very clear the Berenice discovery was unique.
The researchers wrote in their new study: “This burial ground was entirely different from animal mummy deposits and temple necropolises found in Egypt.
