Dogs in the Athenian Agora

By (author) Colin Whiting

Book cover: Dogs in the Athenian Agora

Extent: 440 pages

Publisher: American School of Classical Studies at Athens

Subjects: Classical Studies, Mediterranean Archaeology

Series: Agora Picture Book

Series volume number: 28

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(April 2022)

ISBN: 9780876616468

5.47 x 8.46 inches

Price: $6.95

In stock

This study focuses on the “saucer pyres,” a series of 70 deposits excavated in the residential and industrial areas bordering the Athenian Agora. Each consisted of a shallow pit, its floor sometimes marked by heavy burning, with a votive deposit of pottery and fragments of burnt bone, ash, and charcoal.


In this book, readers are shown how dogs fit into ancient Greek society with material from the last 90 years of excavations at the Athenian Agora by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Topics range from how ancient Greeks hunted with dogs and what they considered a proper dog’s name to the excavation of tender burials in the Agora and the sacrifice of dogs to the gods of the underworld. Mythological dogs like the three-headed Kerberos appear, as do the pawprints that very real dogs left behind more than a thousand years ago. Dozens of illustrations of pottery, sculpture, and excavated remains enliven the text. Anyone curious about dogs in antiquity and how they relate to dogs in the present day will be sure to find interesting material in this portable, affordable text.

  • By (author) Colin Whiting