Egyptian Cat
The cat enjoyed an unusual position among the animals in ancient Egypt. It was a pet, hunter and object of worship. As a pet, the cat was prized by both pharaoh and peasant. The cat’s prowess as a rodent catcher must certainly have endeared it to the Egyptian farmers. The fertile Nile valley was the agricultural centre of ancient Egypt, and New Stone Age people, among them the Fayum is and Merimdeans,migrated from Asia, settled there and engaged in agriculture and live-stock breeding. Their grain crops attracted all kinds of insects and rodents to the fields and granaries. If the rats and mice of ancient Egypt were as voracious as those of today, the Egyptian grain farmers must have suffered severe damage to their crops before they put cats to hunting in the granaries and fields. When cats went to work, the rats and mice were quickly routed.
Egyptian hunters also utilised the cat’s abilities. The cat, or Mu, as the Egyptians called it, was often trained to catch birds and other small mammals on the ground and in the trees. It was also trained to retrieve ducks from water, as depicted in ancient Egyptian drawings and papyri.
The cat played an important role in Egyptian religion. It was regarded as a sacred animal and was entitled to worship and protection.The cat symbolized both good and evil and was regarded as a god of fertility. It was also carried into battle by Egyptian warriors as a good-luck token. Some of the Egyptian gods and goddesses were depicted as possessing catlike traits and features. Ra, the sun god, was closely identified with the male cat. When the spiri (moxed R.a was sup-posed to assume the body of a cat. Bast, or Pasli, the cat goddess, was usually depicted with a cat’s head. The popularity of Bast is shown by the large number of images of her–from life-size statues or paintings to tiny figures on earrings found in. Egyptian tombs and mastabas.Archaeological discoveries show that the Egyptians paid homage to Bast in the ancient city of Bubastis, to which hundreds of thousands of pilgrims traveled for the elaborate ceremonies held in honour of the Egyptian goddess.
Cats were kept in various temples in Egypt. When they died, they were embalmed and interred in tombs beside the mummies of Egyptian nobles. Amulets, bracelets and other trinkets fashioned in the image of the cat have also been found in the tombs. Cat mummies brought to England by British archaeologists.The University of Pennsylvania’s museum also contains cat mummies,all carefully wrapped, in its Egyptian collection.
Darwin considered cat mummies to be of three species— F. caliguluta, F. Bubastes and F. chaos. The first two species are extinct; the latter may have been the jungle cat, L. chaus. The modern Abyssinian Cat probably descended from the F. chaus described by Darwin; at least it resembles the statues of most of the sacred cats of ancient Egypt.