Cats in Egypt

In ancient Egypt, cats were sacred animals, and also beloved house pets. In fact, most modern domestic cats are descendant of Egypt kitten. Now we don’t know exactly when the cat was domesticated in Egypt, because people at that time only had a single word for cat: miu*, meaning “he/ she who mews” – never-mind if it was a wild cat or a domestic cat. It was probably around 2000 B.C.

*Miu as well as mii or miw. Also translated as “to see.”

So why was the cat all that popular? Well, imagine being an Egyptian at that time. As soon as you step outside your village hut into the hot outside, you’d be practically surrounded by snakes, rats, and other creatures you wouldn’t necessarily want to have a surprise meeting with. So it can be assumed that Egyptians were simply so grateful to cats because cats were hunting down those nasty creatures.

Gratefulness towards cats soon evolved into a religious cult. Tomb paintings were showing cats. Cats were mummified (yup). A typical Egyptian might name their kid after a cat. There were cat bracelets. Cat amulets for good luck. There were cat festivals. Cat bronze statues. Cat gods, good and evil. The Felix the Cat merchandise craze of the 1920s fades in comparison.

Now cat appreciation is a nice thing, but I’m sure it also got on the nerves of some Egyptians of the time. Imagine this: there was a death penalty for killing a cat, even if it happened accidentally. While some humans might have lost their heads due to cats at the time, certainly there wasn’t a better time to live if you were a cat. A typical small talk in Cairo, ca. 1520 B.C. went like this:

Akori: “So, what did you do today?”
Bari: “Not much. Studying some hieroglyphs. And you?”
Akori: “Oh, I worshipped my cat.”

Sources:
The Cat in Ancient Egypt by Jaromir Malek, via Tour Egypt Monthly.
Cats in Ancient Egypt, Minnesota State University

This post published under a Creative Commons license.

Philipp Lenssen on Tuesday, Jan 10 2006 reg. Cats.