Dog from 3rd century Rome discovered during Subway Excavations

Fires were common in ancient Rome, where narrow streets were densely packed with wooden structures, cooking was done over open flames, and effective fire-fighting was non-existent. Archaeologists recently unearthed the charred remains of a building that was destroyed in one of the city’s conflagrations. Buried within the ruins: the skeleton of a 1,800-year-old dog. The find appears to date to the reign of Septimius Severus, a despotic emperor who ruled from 193 to 211 A.D.

Some 40,000 artifacts have been found during the decade-long project to improve Rome’s subway network.