The mosaic is on the floor of a villa dating to the late 2nd or 3rd Century BCE and found in Adramytteion, on the Aegean coast of what is now Turkey. The cat panel and the dog panel are two of 15 in the mosaic, which has as its centerpiece a depiction of a gorgon, a legendary snake-haired monster whose gaze was said to turn onlookers to stone. Birds, fish, and a winged horse also feature on the mosaic. Among the colors used are black, blue, burgundy, orange, pink, red, white, and yellow.

Archaeologists know the names of the cat and the dog because they are included next to the figures, suggesting that they were household pets or at least very familiar to the people who lived in the villa.

The mosaic is on the floor of one of three halls that surround a central atrium. The villa also has a number of other rooms and a series of pipes and drain.

The archaeologists are from the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul. They have been excavating at the site since 2022.

Adramytteion began as an indigenous settlement in the Iron Age and came under Greek influence in the 8th Century BCE, Persian rule two centuries later, the hegemony of Alexander the Great in 334 BCE, and Roman rule a century later.