Within the Roman villa, which has been dated to the late second to third centuries A.D., archaeologists discovered three halls surrounding a central atrium. In one room, which likely functioned as the villa's main reception hall, archaeologists found a colorful mosaic with 15 separate panels depicting living and mythological creatures.
Another panel of the mosaic depicts a dog named Ocean. (Image credit: H. M. Özgen/Adramytteion Research Archive)
Özgen began excavating at Adramytteion in 2012, but he and his team discovered the Roman villa only recently and excavated it in 2025 and early 2026. In the Roman period, Adramytteion was a provincial capital within Asia Minor and a prime trading spot due to its location at the head of a gulf on the Aegean Sea. The impressive villa included three mosaic-paved halls, a number of secondary rooms, and a network of pipes and drains that may have connected to a latrine.
Archaeologists discovered the colorful floor mosaic in a Roman-era residence at Adramytteion, an archaeological site in Turkey. (Image credit: H. M. Özgen/Adramytteion Research Archive)
Only two of the animals depicted in the mosaic are named. As someone entered the room, the first mosaic panel they would have seen to their left was a pale cat seated on a blue-green cushion, Özgen wrote in the study. Above the cat are the Greek letters ΖΜΑΡΑΓΔΙΝ (Zmaragdin), meaning emerald. The relaxed cat sitting on a cushion suggests that Emerald may have been a pet rather than a stray.
RELATED STORIESOne possible explanation for Emerald's name may be a link to the desert of Roman Egypt, where emeralds were mined in antiquity; the villa owner may have been a merchant with North African connections.
Emerald and Ocean were likely familiar to the villa's residents, even if they weren't specifically pets, Özgen wrote, and their depictions in the mosaic may have functioned as familiar signs of ownership and household identity.
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