Dogs in the ancient world: Did you mean...?

In medieval and Renaissance Europe, dogs were considered little more than 'machines' which performed certain tasks, such as guarding a home or tracking game, but this view changed significantly during the Age of Enlightenment (also known...

Pets in Colonial America were kept by the colonists for the same reasons they were in Europe: for companionship and, in the case of dogs, for protection, hunting, and herding. Cats controlled vermin in homes and barns until the 18th century...

The Nimrud Dogs, five canine figurines found at the ancient Mesopotamian city of Nimrud, were only a few of the many startling finds in the region during the 19th century when expeditions were sent to corroborate biblical narratives through...

Pets were very important to the ancient Egyptians and considered gifts from the gods to be cared for until their death when they were expected to be returned to the divine realm from which they had come. In life, pets were well cared for...

The sea dogs, as they were disparagingly called by the Spanish authorities, were privateers who, with the consent and sometimes financial support of Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603 CE), attacked and plundered Spanish colonial settlements...

Pets were as important to the Norse of the Viking Age (c. 790-1100 CE) as they were to any other culture, past or present. The Vikings kept dogs and cats as pets and both feature in Norse religious iconography and literature. The Norse also...

Dogs have been a constant of the human condition for thousands of years. Footprints of a young child and canine dated to 26,000 years ago have been found in the Chauvet Cave in France, showing them walking side by side, and, long before then...

A belief in an afterlife was central to every major civilization of the ancient world and this encouraged the recognition of the reality of ghosts as the spirits of the departed who, for one reason or another, either returned from the realm...

Religion (from the Latin Religio, meaning 'restraint,' or Relegere, according to Cicero, meaning 'to repeat, to read again,' or, most likely, Religionem, 'to show respect for what is sacred') is an organized system of beliefs and practices...

People have been keeping animals as pets since at least the beginning of recorded history and the relationship between humans and their non-human friends seems to have remained more or less the same through the centuries. Dogs, in particular...