Cats
If you played a word association game around the theme of Ancient Egypt, the word cat would appear.
The idea of cats and Ancient Egypt is inseparable. Some even say that cats remember the day when they were once worshiped as gods in Egypt. Through out Egyptian history, it is possible to follow the story of cats and their role in society and religion from the earliest times to Graeco-Roman times (Lloyd, 2010).
The human–cat relationship (or slave and master relationship as we would now joke) has a very long history in Egypt, and there is a wealth of representational, textual, and zooarchaeological evidence indicating that some of these carnivores, notably the lion and household cat, considerably influenced pharaonic culture and life (Houlihan, 2001).
Part of the cultural and political influence can be seen with the fact that the cat was also the totem for some clans in Ancient Egypt (Conway, 1891).
The cat did hold a special place in the heart of Ancient Egyptians. Cats were not just for sentimental purposes, they did have a practical use for the Egyptians. Cats were domesticated by the 11th dynasty and came to be universally revered (Gill, 2003)
The Ancient Egyptian world for (domestic) cat is “miau [miw]” (McDermott, 2003). Similar to the sound that we use in English today to mimic the vocal sound a cat makes.
Cats were used to catch mice, rats and snakes. Tomb paintings show that cuts were also used for hunting, and they would be used to retrieve birds and from that were caught. To kill a cat was the worst thing to do (Watson, 2010). Cats were also thought to keep evil from the home. They also invoked the power of “the tomcat who slew the “serpent of chaos”(Fletcher, 2009).
Cats often appear on tomb walls with their owners. They were shown hunting or sitting under a lady’s chair. Some academics argue that cats painted under a lady’s chair in a tomb painting was to indicate That she will always be available for sex in the afterlife (Hart, 2012).
Cats were most often associated with the goddess Bastet. The cat goddess was considered to be the daughter of Re and was also important to the king (Oakes & Gahlin, 2006).
Bastets cult temple was located at Bubastis. This cult centre was known for raucous pilgrims. Herodotus described the pilgrims as getting drunk and engaging in lewd behaviour (Fletcher, 2009). Herodotus description of the pilgrimage look reasonably reliable. Even though his writings were more about highlighting the differences between-the Egyptians and Greeks (Elsner, 2010).
Bastet’s cult centre also had cat cemeteries. The cemetery was under ground and had vaulted ceilings. The galleries contained mummified cats and hundreds of bronze statues of Bastet (Oakes & Gahlin, 2006). The cemeteries have also been found at Saqqara and Memphis (Hart, 2012).
It has been found that some of the cats found at Bubastis had been breed to be sacrificed to the feline goddess (Fletcher, 2003).
The well prepared cat mummies show how loved and respected cats were by the Ancient Egyptians (Hart, 2012).
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Bibliography:
Conway, W. (1891). The cats of Ancient Egypt. In Dawn of Art in the Ancient World: An Archeological Sketch. MacMillan and co.
Elsner, J. (2010). Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman & early Christian antiquity (p. 133). Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
Fletcher, J. (2003). Ancient Egypt – Life, Myth and Art. London: Duncan Baird.
Fletcher, J. (2009). The Egyptian book of living & dying (pp. 44,74,75). London: Duncan Baird.
Gill, A. (2003).(p. 248). London: Harper Collins Entertainment.
Hart, G. (2012). A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses (pp. 41,46). Hoboken: Routledge.
Houlihan, P. (2001). Felines. In D. Redford, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press.
Lloyd, A. (2010). A Companion to Ancient Egypt. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell [Imprint].
McDermott, B. (2003). Decoding Egyptian Hieroglyphis; How to read the secret Language of the Pharaohs (p. 166). London: Duncan Baird.
Oakes, L., & Gahlin, L. (2006). Ancient Egypt (p. 229). London: Hermes House.
Watson, A. (2010). Ancient Egypt (p. 25). Brisbane: Lulu.
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