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Cats in ancient Egypt

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Cats in ancient Egypt were represented in social and religious practices of Ancient Egypt for more than 30 centuries. Several Ancient Egyptian deities were depicted and sculptured with cat-like heads such as Mafdet, Bastet and Sekhmet representing justice, fertility and power. Cats were praised for killing venomous snakes and protecting the Pharaoh since at least the First Dynasty of Egypt. Skeletal remains of cats were found among funerary goods dating to the 12th Dynasty.

Cat cemeteries at the archaeological sites Speos Artemidos, Bubastis and Saqqara were used for several centuries. They contained vast numbers of cat mummies and cat statues that are exhibited in museum collections worldwide.

Cultural significance of cats
Cats were praised for killing venomous snakes and protecting the Pharaoh since at least the First Dynasty of Egypt. Skeletal remains of cats were found among funerary goods dating to the 12th Dynasty. The protective function of cats is indicated in the Book of the Dead, where a cat represents Ra and the benefits of the sun for life on Earth. Cat-shaped decorations used during the New Kingdom of Egypt indicate that the cat cult became more popular in daily life. Cats were depicted in association with the name of Bastet.

As described by Diodorus Siculus, killing a cat was regarded a serious crime. In the years between 60 and 56 BC, outraged people lynched a Roman for killing a cat, although pharaoh Ptolemy XII Auletes tried to intervene.

Cats and deity depiction
Mafdet was the first known cat-headed deity in ancient Egypt. During the First Dynasty 2920–2770 BC, she was regarded as protector of the Pharaoh's chambers against snakes, scorpions and evil. She also was often depicted with a head of a leopard (Panthera pardus). She was particularly prominent during the reign of Den.

The deity Bastet is known from at least the Second Dynasty 2890 BC onwards. At the time, she was depicted with a lion (Panthera leo) head. Seals and stone vessels with her name were found in the tombs of the pharaohs Khafra and Nyuserre Ini, indicating that she was regarded as protector since the mid 30th century BC during the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties. A wall painting in the Fifth Dynasty’s burial ground at Saqqara shows a small cat with a collar, suggesting that tamed African wildcats were kept in the pharaonic quarters by the 26th century BC.

Amulets with cat heads appeared in the 21st century BC during the 11th Dynasty. A mural from this period in the tomb of Baqet III depicts a cat in a hunting scene confronting a rat-like rodent.

Excavation
Flinders Petrie excavated 17 cat skeletons in a tomb at the necropolis Umm El Qa'ab dating to the 12th Dynasty 1991–1783 BC. Next to the skeletons stood small pots that are thought to have contained milk for the cats.

In 1890, William Martin Conway wrote about excavations in Speos Artemidos near Beni Hasan: "The plundering of the cemetery was a sight to see, but one had to stand well windward. The village children came from day to day and provided themselves with the most attractive mummies they could find. These they took down the river bank to sell for the smallest coin to passing travelers. The path became strewn with mummy cloth and bits of cats' skulls and bones and fur in horrid positions, and the wind blew the fragments about and carried the stink afar." In 1890, a shipment of thousands of animal mummies reached Liverpool. Most of them were cat mummies. A large part was sold as fertiliser, a small part was purchased by the zoological museum of the city's university college.

In 1907, the British Museum received a collection of 192 mummified cats and 11 small carnivores excavated at Gizeh. The mummies probably date to between 600 and 200 BC. Two of these cat mummies were radiographed in 1980. The analysis revealed that they were deliberately strangulated before they reached the age of two years. They were probably used to supply the demand for mummified cats as votive offerings.

Remains of 23 cats were found in the early 1980s in a small mastaba tomb at the archaeological site Balat in Dakhla Oasis, dated to the Old Kingdom of Egypt about 25th century BC. The cats were probably mummified as tissue shreds were still stuck in their bones.

Excavations in the Bubasteum area at Saqqara in the early 1980s yielded 200 cat mummies in the tomb of the Vizier Aperel. Another 184 cat mummies were found in a different part of this tomb in the 1990s, comprising 11 packets with a few cat bones and 84 packets containing mud, clay and pebbles. Radiographic examination showed that mostly young cats were mummified; most cats died of skull fractures and had dislocated spinal bones, indicating that they were beaten to death. In this site, the tomb of Tutankhamun's wet nurse Maia was discovered in 1996, which contained cat mummies next to human mummies. In 2001, the skeleton of a male lion was found in this tomb that also showed signs of mummification. It was about nine years old, probably lived in captivity for many years and showed signs of malnutrition. It had probably lived and died in the Ptolemaic period. Mummified remains of 335 domestic and 29 jungle cats were excavated in the catacombs of Anubis at Saqqara during works started in 2009.

Cat mummification
The first known indication for the mummification of a cat was found in an elaborately carved limestone sarcophagus dated to about 1350 BC. This cat is assumed to have been Prince Thutmose’s beloved pet.

Mummifying animals grew in popularity during the Late Period of ancient Egypt from 664 BC onwards. Mummies were used for votive offerings to the associated deity, mostly during festivals or by pilgrims. Catacombs from the New Kingdom period in the Bubastis, Saqqara and Beni Hasan necropoli were reused as cemeteries for mummies offered to Bastet. In the mid 5th century BC, Herodotus described the annual festival at the Bubastis temple as the largest in the country, attended by several hundred thousand pilgrims.

In her book The Cult of the Cat, Patricia Dale-Green states that, "The cat's body was placed in a linen sheet and carried amidst bitter lamentations by the bereaved to a sacred house where it was treated with drugs and spices by an embalmer." She goes on to state that although the cat of an Egyptian noble would receive more extravagant burial status, the body of a worker's cat would still be carefully prepared and the embalming carried out with the same conscientiousness as for a human body, often with provisions for the afterlife such as pots of milk and even mummified mice.

The Cult of Bastet
In Egyptian mythology, gods and goddesses were able to transform themselves into different animals. Yet, only one deity, the goddess Bastet, that had the power to become a cat. From the 22nd Dynasty at around the mid 950s BC onwards, the deity Bastet and her temple in the city of Bubastis grew in popularity. She is now shown only with a small cat head. Domestic cats were increasingly worshipped and considered sacred. When they died, they were embalmed, coffined and buried in cat cemeteries. The domestic cat (Felis catus) was regarded as living incarnation of Bastet who protects the household against granivores, whereas the lion-headed deity Sekhmet was worshipped as protector of the pharaohs. During the reign of Pharaoh Osorkon II in the 9th century BC, the temple of Bastet was enlarged by a festival hall. Cat statues and statuettes from this period exist in diverse sizes and materials, including solid and hollow cast bronze, alabaster and faïence.

Types of Ancient Egyptian Cats
In 1830, Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg accounted of having observed three different small cat forms in Egypt: the jungle cat, the African wildcat, and a sacred cat that was intermediate in size between the jungle cat and the domestic cat. He called this cat Felis bubastis.

Cats in modern Egypt
Cats and religion began to be disassociated after Egypt became a Roman province in 30 BC. A series of decrees and edicts issued by Roman Emperors in the 4th and 5th centuries AD gradually curtailed the practice of paganism and pagan rituals in Egypt. Pagan temples were impounded and sacrifices prohibited by 380 AD. Three edicts issued between 391 and 392 prohibited pagan rituals and burial ceremonies at all cult sites. Death penalty for offenders was introduced in 395, and the destruction of pagan temples decreed in 399. By 415, the Christian church received all property that was formerly dedicated to paganism. Pagans were exiled by 423, and crosses replaced pagan symbols following a decree from 435.

Egypt has since experienced a decline in the veneration once held for cats. They were still respected in the 15th century, when Arnold von Harff travelled to Egypt and observed mamluk warriors treating cats with honour and empathy. Gentle treatment of cats is part of Islamic tradition.