Monkeys found buried in Egyptian pet cemetery

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Polish archaeologists conducting excavations at the Egyptian port of Berenice have uncovered a strange burial ground filled with monkey skeletons, reports Joanna Jasińska for the First News.

Per a statement, the roughly 2,000-year-old remains likely belonged to rhesus macaques imported from India as household pets during the first and second century A.D., when Egypt was part of the Roman Empire. The researchers also identified bones from the bonnet macaque, a smaller monkey native to the same region.

“This is a unique find. Until now, no one has found Indian monkeys at archaeological sites in Africa,” says Marta Osypińska, a zooarchaeologist at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Poznań, in the statement. 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/monkeys-found-buried-2000-year-old-egyptian-pet-cemetery-180975667/