igetalongwithoutyouverywell:

keuhkopussirotta:

The ancient greeks really had graves for dogs. And they carved stuff on the stone like “carrying you here, I now feel as much grief as I felt joy when I carried you home” and “you never barked without reason, but now you are silent”. The human urge to tell a story spans centuries and millennia, and the loss of a really good dog makes you want to tell people - even people centuries in the future, who will never know your name - that there once was a dog who was a very good girl, but now she no longer is and you aren’t sure what to do with all this sorrow.

This is my very favourite thing.

Last year, I found this one tucked away in a corner of the archaeological museum in Istanbul:

The inscription reads:

“His owner buried the dog Parthenope, that he played with, in gratitude for this happiness. [Mutual] love is rewarding, like the one for this dog. Having been a friend to my owner, I deserve this grave. Looking at this, find yourself a worthy friend who is both ready to love you while you are still alive and will care for your body [after your death].“

On so many of the other funerary carvings, the text was often more about the person who commissioned the carving than the person the carving was commissioned for. This one, which is for a dog, doesn’t even identify his owner—it’s entirely about a very, very good boy named Parthenope, who was loved so much that he will be remembered forever.