Onar Vedat, Köroğlu Gülgün, Armutak Altan, Öncü Öğül Emre, Siddiq Abu B, Chrószcz Aleksander
Osteoarchaeology Practice and Research Centre and Department of Anatomy, Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa, 34320 Istanbul, Turkey.
Division of the Art History, Bomonti Campus, Mimar Sinan Fine Art University, 34380 Istanbul, Turkey.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Jan 23;11(2):288. doi: 10.3390/ani11020288.
In the 2015 excavation season, an east-west oriented burial (2015-Grave-14) built with large dimension stone blocks was unearthed on the south edge of "Area IVi" at the Balatlar Church in Sinop, on the northeastern Black Sea coast of Turkey. In this grave, which is dated between the end of the 6th century AD and the first half of the 7th century AD, a human skeleton was found with the head to the west and a cat skeleton was carefully placed next to the right femur. This study on the burial and the cat skeleton within it shows that, compared to the Roman period, the status of cats reached a higher level during the Byzantine period. It was found that alongside of being a pet, the Balatlar cat was a young healthy female individual that instinctively hunted rodents and birds, given that the remains of a rat and a sparrow were found in the region of the abdominal cavity, corresponding with the stomach location in the living animal. The grave presents the most significant direct archaeological evidence of a pet-human bond recorded at any Byzantine site so far.
在2015年的发掘季，在土耳其黑海东北海岸锡诺普市巴拉特拉尔教堂“IVi区”南缘，出土了一座用大型石块建造的东西向墓葬（2015 - 墓 - 14）。在这座可追溯至公元6世纪末至7世纪上半叶的墓葬中，发现了一具头部朝西的人类骨架，并且在右股骨旁精心摆放着一具猫的骨架。对这座墓葬及其内部猫骨架的研究表明，与罗马时期相比，猫在拜占庭时期的地位达到了更高水平。研究发现，巴拉特拉尔的这只猫除了作为宠物外，还是一只年轻健康的雌性个体，本能地捕食啮齿动物和鸟类，因为在腹腔区域发现了一只老鼠和一只麻雀的残骸，这与活体动物胃部位置相对应。这座墓葬是迄今为止在任何拜占庭遗址记录的宠物与人类关系最显著的直接考古证据。
