Domestic+Cat

The Cat in Ancient Egypt


 * Egyptian Name:**

//Myw//, //Miu, Mau//, feminine //Miit, Miat// ("He/She Who Meows")


 * Hieroglyphics:**



The domestic Egyptian cat is descended from the African Wildcat, although some interbreeding with the Jungle Cat is not impossible. Ancient Egyptian cats were tawny, grey, or ginger, with black tabby spots, splotches, and stripes. The Egyptians poetically described their cats' markings as looking like necklaces, lockets, and chains around their necks, bracelets on their legs, butterfly patterns on their shoulders, scarab marks on their foreheads, rings on their tails, and kohl around their eyes. Being rare in ancient Egypt, the black cat was especially sacred; Egyptian physicians used the black cat symbol in healing.

The friend of the farmer, cats were highly valued as hunters of vermin in the granaries. The claws of the cat were compared to the knives of warriors, as cats killed the harmful snakes and scorpions that invaded Egyptian homes. For a farmer to dream of a large cat was lucky, as it foretold that he would have a large harvest.

The ancient Egyptians revered cats more than any culture in history - cats usually held a higher position in the household than most humans. They often wore golden collars, earrings, and nose-rings and were allowed to eat from the same plates as their owners. Even in times of famine, household cats were well fed and cared for, anointed with perfumed oils, and regularly bathed and groomed. Cats were by far the most popular pet in Egypt - nearly every household had at least one. Hymns praised the beauty and peacefulness of the "cat stretched out in the noonday sun, warm and content and asleep!"

Cats were thought to have nine lives because the cat-goddess Bast had nine //Ka// (souls) like the god Ra, who created the nine gods of the primeval era out of his own substance. Because of their love of the sun and warmth, cats were considered to be the children of Ra, the sun-god. Ra himself was called “the Tomcat,” and was sometimes pictured as a wildcat killing the serpent Apophis with his claws or a knife. "The killing of the snake Apophis by the Living Cat" was a very popular representation on tombs.

In the Coffin Texts the god Ra took the form of a cat "on the night of making war and warding off the rebels, on the day of destroying the foes of the Lord of All." The Pyramid Texts say: "Who is this //Miu oa// (Great Tomcat)? He is the god Ra himself. He was called 'cat' when Sia spoke of him because he was mewing during what he was doing, and that was how the name of 'cat' came into being." The "cry of the tomcat" was compared with the voices of the dead in the Afterlife.

On a stela found during the reign of Nectanebo (360-342 B.C.E.), a distressed female cat who has been stung by a scorpion appeals to the sun-god to come and help “his daughter.” Ra appears and calms her down, telling her that it is in his power to render the poison ineffective, and promises her his protection.

A hymn of Ra states: "I am the cat beneath the laurel tree, dividing and conquering evil." One of the prayers found in the Book of the Dead starts with "The name of the god who guards you is Cat." An incantation from the Book of the Dead allows the deceased person to become "a female cat of lapis lazuli," a form of the cat-goddess Bast, able to strike down serpents and overpower any dangers on their journey through the Duat.

As a creature of the sun, the ancient Egyptians thought that cats held the sun’s rays in their eyes at night. Because the Egyptians had a great fear of the dark, they observed with awe that the cat, a nocturnal creature, walked the shadowed streets with the greatest of confidence. The ancient Egyptian sages made so much of the cat's midnight forays they declared that the cat alone was responsible for preventing the world from falling into eternal darkness. The cat was associated with several deities such as Ra, Pakhet, Bes, and Nefertem, but none more so than Bast.

Sacred cats lived in Bast’s temples, and were worshiped as demi-gods, the “Children of Bast.” Throughout Egypt thousands of statues and images of Bast were set up in the temples by priests so worshipers could place offerings of fish, flowers, and milk before them. According to Diodorus, the Egyptians used to feed cats with “bread dripped in milk and raw cut-up fish” and called them with “a special clucking sound.” Those who had the privilege of feeding the sacred animals wore special emblems, and people they met bowed to them in respect.

Pilgrims purchased fish as gifts to feed the sacred cats, which were carried about the temples by priestesses in special baskets. The Egyptians upheld the relationship between cats and humans as an ideal representation of the relationship between an individual and their deities. Prayers have been found addressed to the “good and peaceful cat,” “Lady Cat, Mistress of Heaven,” and the "beautiful and gracious cat, enduring, enduring!"

Cats were so highly respected that to kill one, even by accident, was punishable by death - one Roman visitor to Bubastis who unwisely killed a cat was lynched by the outraged citizens, despite the pleas of the king Ptolemy XII and the fear which Rome inspired. Laws were passed to protect and to prohibit the export of cats. The Greek writer Diodorus claimed that Egyptians abroad ransomed captive falcons and cats in order to bring them home to Egypt. Court records confirm that armies were occasionally dispatched to rescue the kidnapped felines! According to one theory, the cat, as a semi-divine being, could not be owned by a mere human - pet cats were instead considered to be guests in the house that they lived. Only the pharaoh had a high enough status to actually own a cat. Thus all cats were under the guardianship of the pharaoh, and therefore harming a cat was thought to be treason.

The reverence of cats in Egypt was legendary; Herodotus noted that when a house caught fire, people were more concerned to save their cats than to put the fire out. He also remarked that the cats “leap over the men and spring into the fire” in heroic attempts to rescue their kittens. According to an ancient myth, the Persians cruelly exploited the Egyptians’ worship of cats by using them in an attack. They tied cats to their shields, then gathered up hundreds of cats and began to lob them off of a high wall to their deaths. The Egyptians couldn’t stand to see their sacred animals treated so sacrilegiously, and surrendered.

Images of cats decorated not only jewelry such as necklaces, amulets, pins, bracelets, earrings, and rings, but clothing-clasps, furniture, musical instruments, mirrors, perfume containers, wands, make-up cases, vases, and bowls as well. Cats were also featured predominantly on walking sticks or canes, perhaps as a wish to become as sure-footed and graceful as a cat. The white wine of Lower Egypt was known as the Wine of Bast, and images of cats were sometimes pictured on wine jars and flasks. Kittens and cat amulets were popular New Year's gifts.

In Egyptian art, faces, be they human, god, or animal, were nearly always rendered in profile. Cats were one of the rare exceptions, often being shown looking at the viewer with a watchful gaze. By Egyptian artistic convention, the tails of seated cats were almost always depicted as being curled around their right side. In tombs cats are pictured in their owner's laps, under their chairs, and lounging on windowsills, doubtless places they occupied in life.

In a scene from the tomb of Ipuy, the family cat, wearing a silver earring, sits under her mistress' chair. Her kitten is shown on its master's lap, playing with the sleeves of his fancy garment. In other tombs pet cats are depicted hunting birds in the marshes, enjoying a meal of roasted fish, or even fighting with other pets, such as geese and monkeys. Groups of adult cats are shown sleeping together.

The motif of “the cat under the chair” was highly common in Egyptian art. A cat was usually pictured crouched under the chair of a noble lady, representing her prosperity and fertility. A dog or monkey under a man’s chair was used in the same context. Women were often compared to cats - “She rages like Sekhmet and she is friendly like Bast” and “When a man smells of myrrh, his wife is a cat before him. When a man is suffering, his wife is a lioness before him” were common sayings.

To be told one had the eyes of a cat was considered a great compliment - it was said that Cleopatra's irresistible charm came from her resemblance to a cat. “Little Cat” and “Pussy Cat” became terms of endearment, specific to young girls. Many Egyptian parents named their children after cats, especially their daughters. The mummy of a five-year-old girl named Mirt-Sheri ("Little Cat" or "Kitten") was found at Deir el-Bahri in King Mentuhotep's temple.

A woman who wanted children would wear an amulet of a cat (representing Bast) with kittens - the number of kittens indicated the number of children she wished to have. The most common of these amulets was of a mother cat with one kitten, sitting snugly between its mother's forepaws, or being protected by an encircling paw. When two kittens appear they are often sitting in front of or beside the mother cat. In a few instances the mother sits with her forepaws on her kitten's heads, as though blessing them.

In most amulets or statues of cat families, the kittens are imitative - when the mother sits, they sit. In others they are gathered around their mother, suckling, sleeping, or playing, sometimes even perching on the mother cat's head. The maximum number of kittens is ten, surrounding and standing on the mother cat in a pyramid shape. These amulets were made of carnelian, ivory, glass, faience, bronze, quartz, bone, wood, copper, limestone, lapis lazuli, agate, hematite - every known material from gold to mud.

Mythologist Robert Briffault remarks on the cat’s great adaptively to motherhood and her ability to love substitute children equally with her own. Typically cats who have lost a kitten will willingly adopt kittens of another litter. During the 2nd century C.E. Plutarch wrote, somewhat mysteriously, that the Egyptian Cat gives birth first to one kitten, then two, until the number seven is reached. He points out that this makes a total of twenty-eight, the same as the days of the lunar month.

When a pet cat died, the entire family cut their hair and shaved their eyebrows in mourning, and the cat was mummified and buried in a temple dedicated to Bast, often in elaborate cat-sized sarcophagi. In fact, it has been revealed that many families would beggar themselves in order to assure their cats received the very best embalming and burial.

The cat was usually wrapped in linen and treated with cedar oil and spices, and some were fitted with mummy masks made of bronze, ceramic, or gold. Some cat mummies were adorned with features drawn in black paint (one cat mummy at the Cairo Museum has bandages that are cunningly painted to give the impression of a brindled cat) and were given colored glass, obsidian, or rock crystal eyes.

On some cat coffins, the owner is shown, his arms raised in adoration in front of the cat. A few of the names of pet cats have been deciphered from inscriptions found on their coffins, such as //Ta-Miit// ("Lady Cat," or "Miss Kitty"), "Graceful One," //Tai Miuwette// ("The Little Mewer"), and //Nedjemet// ("Sweety.") Gifts of food, jewelry, and jars of milk have been found buried with many of the cat mummies, as well as collars and favorite toys.

The ancient Egyptians loved animals and preserved their beloved pets in hopes that they would accompany their owners into the afterlife. When a pet died before its owner, the animal was often mummified and placed into the owner's tomb to await them so that they could be buried together. One woman was buried with the remains of the seventeen cats that she had owned during her lifetime.

Prince Tuthmosis was buried with his beloved pet cat, //Tamyt// ("The Pleasant One"), who was mummified and placed in an elaborate white limestone coffin in his tomb. The inscriptions include declarations of the goddesses Isis and Nephthys about the protection which they promise to give the cat Tamyt. On the lid she addresses the sky goddess Nut and wishes to become an “imperishable star.”

The text guarantees that “the limbs of Tamyt, one true voice before the Great God, shall not be weary.” Tamyt is depicted sitting before a table piled high with offerings, a common scene in human tombs, wearing a ribbon collar. This royal cat was even buried with her own cat-headed Ushabti. So reminiscent of a person's funerary chest was Tamyt's coffin that at first it was mistaken for a canopic chest belonging to a human, and was even included in the Cairo Museum's official publication on canopic jars housed in its collection.

The priestesses of Bast guarded the "resting-place of the cats" - elaborate underground rock-cut galleries where temple cats were buried. Each cat was mummified and entombed in its own pottery jar, occasionally wearing the sacred //menat// necklace or head ornaments such as cobras and solar disks, to show that they were deities. Numerous tiny, protective statuettes of Bast have been found among the bandages of these cat mummies. Even cats that had died accidentally were treated respectfully - stillborn kittens and fetuses were mummified and buried inside the stomach of a statue that represented their still-living mother. More than 300,000 mummified cats were discovered when Bast’s temple at Bubastis was excavated.

Unfortunately, the respect afforded to the cat in Egypt did not last. The cat cemetery at Tell-Basta was pillaged and completely destroyed in the second half of the 19th century, before it could be investigated by archeologists. E. Naville, who excavated there on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund in the late 1880's, described traveling there to find the "heaps of white bones and torn bandages" littering the site, thousands of cat mummies destroyed in a search for loot.

When the Suez Canal was being dug, workmen had to stop for weeks at time to clear away the millions of cat mummies that they accidentally uncovered. In an act that would have horrified the ancient Egyptians, nineteen tons of cat mummies were sold for 3 pounds, 13 shillings, and 9 pence per ton (about $18) and shipped to England to be ground up for fertilizer.


 * Modern Influen****ce:**

The modern cat breed known as the Egyptian Mau is the only true recognized descendant of the ancient Egyptian cat.

The Felines of Ancient Egypt