Real Ancient Egyptian Cat

So it is hardly surprising to find that the domestic cat evolved from egyptian and near eastern populations of african wildcats.

Real ancient egyptian cat. Facts about egyptian cats inform the readers with a sacred animal during the ancient egyptian period. Cats were praised for killing venomous snakes and protecting the pharaoh since at least the first dynasty of egypt. To honor these treasured pets wealthy families dressed them in jewels and fed them. The first domestication of cats took place in the fertile crescent dated back 10 000 years ago from the middle eastern subspecies of wildcat.

The deity mut was also depicted as a cat and in the company of a cat. The latter had a calmer temperament and so was more commonly domesticated than its wilder relative. Ancient egyptian cats enjoyed a sacred status in the religion of this country and cat deities existed even before the formation of the kingdom itself in 3100 bc. There were two main breeds of cat native to ancient egypt.

The two species eventually merged creating a new breed which was closely related to the modern egyptian mau. Felines believed to be domesticated first in egypt were held in such high regard that anyone who killed a cat even by accident was in turn sentenced to death according to national geographic. Egyptians believed cats were magical creatures capable of bringing good luck to the people who housed them. Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn companion cats who had died and there were severe penalties for taking the life of a cat.

But while egyptians are typically credited with their worship of cats and beliefs in cats magical properties this worship may have been a mixed bag for cats. All cat breeds could therefore be considered originally egyptian. Cats of course are natural hunters who would have been protecting grain stores. Several ancient egyptian deities were depicted and sculptured with cat like heads such as mafdet bastet and sekhmet representing justice fertility and power.

The iconic image of an egyptian cat arises from objects such as the leaded bronze statuette from the metropolitan museum of art pictured below. Skeletal remains of cats were found. However in this animalwised article we are going to look at present day. In a time long before scientifically based agricultural techniques anything that could be done to preserve the food supply was very important indeed.

Egyptians esteemed cats from at least 5 000 years ago says jstor. They called the cats as mau. Cats in ancient egypt were represented in social and religious practices of ancient egypt for more than 3 000 years. Many people were even buried with their pet cats.

Not only is there artistic and fossil evidence for this the ancient egyptians even worshiped a cat in the form of bastet the cat headed goddess of healing and womanhood protector of the home. The goddess bastet was the cat goddess which was originally a warlikecat lioness but eventually became associated with domesticated cats. The jungle cat felis chaus and the african wildcat felis silvestris lybica. It is made of bronze with gold ornaments.

From wikipedia the free encyclopedia the gayer anderson cat is an ancient egyptian statue of a cat which dates from the late period around 664 332 bc.