Infographic will change your mind about ancient Egyptians loving cats

Below the infographic I briefly touch on the ancient Egyptian paradox of both admiring and respecting the cat while abusing the animal. And other animals all in the name of worshipping the Gods and asking for favours. They were a very superstitious race. Many people still are. 😢😉

Mummified Egyptian kittens used as offerings to the Gods in ancient Egypt by Michael Broad

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The ancient Egyptians had a deep admiration for cats, considering them sacred animals. Cats were valued for their ability to protect homes and granaries by hunting mice, rats, and snakes, which helped safeguard food supplies. Over time, cats became associated with divine protection and were linked to the goddess Bastet, who was the goddess of home, fertility, and protection, often depicted as a lioness or a woman with a cat's head.

The reverence for cats was so strong that they were often mummified and buried with their owners, and killing a cat—even accidentally—was punishable by death. Cats also featured in Egyptian art and religious rituals, showing how highly they were regarded. 

This admiration contributed to the spread of domestic cats throughout the world, as they became popular trade goods and companions for many cultures.

Paradoxically, while the Egyptians deeply revered cats, they also bred them specifically for sacrificial purposes. This practice emerged alongside the religious veneration of Bastet, the feline goddess of home, fertility, and protection. Worshippers would offer mummified cats as votive offerings at her temples, hoping to gain the favour of the goddess.

Archaeological evidence suggests that during certain periods, particularly from around 600 BCE onwards, there were large-scale breeding facilities dedicated to raising cats for this very purpose. Once these cats were killed (often humanely, though not always), they were mummified and offered in temples as a means of devotion. Millions of cat mummies have been found in Egypt, particularly in Bubastis, the center of Bastet worship, and other major temple sites.

While the act of breeding cats for sacrifice might seem contradictory to their revered status, it fits within the broader context of Egyptian religious practices, where offerings to gods—whether food, animals, or objects—were a fundamental way to show devotion. The cat's sacred status didn't prevent this practice, but rather made them more suitable for offerings to please Bastet and other deities. This juxtaposition illustrates the Egyptians' unique blend of spiritual reverence and ritual practices.

It was not just cats that were abused. Eight million jackals where offered to the Gods as mummies and buried in cemeteries in Egypt. It was mass slaughter.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

Cat eye eyeliner influenced by ancient Egyptian cat statues

Image: MikeB

Well, something entirely different for me and something I knew nothing about until I thought about it while preparing this post (for the first time). But there seems to be a trend on the Internet which is that women like cat eyes and they want their eyes to look like the eyes of a cat. You can do this with plastic surgery. I have seen that. And you can achieve it with eyeliner and make up. That was about the sum total of my knowledge on this topic! But I now feel that cat eye eyeliner is influenced by ancient Egyptians.

Cats in Ancient Egypt – not what you think it was like.

Real cat eye is more rounded but this cat does look like they are wearing eyeliner!. Image: MikeB

Perhaps the bigger topic is what do cat eyes look like? Clearly this makeup artist and the woman involved believe that cat eyes slope upwards at the far end. That is what the make-up achieves. They seem to be elongated with sharp pointed ends left and right. I don't see this with cat eyes by the way. I've seen lots of domestic cat eyes and this is not what they look like! So, this is a human perception. Perhaps the phrase "cat eye" is simply a description of a certain type of human eye appearance which appeals to some women but one which is not actually in truth linked to the eyes of domestic or wild cats.

Online news media say that "many women have a love-hate relationship with winged eyeliner". It looks fierce. Perhaps it is the fierceness which is the link to cats! The phrase is "winged eyeliner". It is the eyeliner at the far end of the eyes as I've mentioned which elongates the eye and turns the end upwards slightly. 

There is a reference here to the era of ancient Egypt and Cleopatra and Nefertiti! That's where the origin of this eyeliner comes from, I think. And I've now got a clearer picture about this. The ancient Egyptians loved their cats. They worship them through cat gods.

We have the filmic rendition of cat eyes in many films. I'm thinking of the Cleopatra film. The trend for cat eyes is not based upon the real domestic cat eye but upon the statues of cats of ancient Egypt. That's my assessment.

Correction!? Here is a photo from Ukraine of a cat with 'cat eyes'. 

Picture: Defense of Ukraine. It is Vyshyvanka Day in Ukraine today May 19th, 2023.

Tell me what you think. I'd love to hear from you.

The world's first cat breeders were Ancient Egyptians and they were ignorant

The ancient Egyptians may well have been the world's first cat breeders. Also, they may have bred by far the greatest number of cats at any time in the history of cat breeding.  They were world record holders when it comes to the domestic cat but in a very uncomfortable way.

This was not a nation that worshiped the cat in the way you do when you respect the cat as a sentient being; no, it was worshiping the cat as a deity and breeding millions of cats for ritualistic sacrifice. As I said this was a nation of cat abusers not cat lovers.

Bastet - Ancient Egyptian sculpture - Louvre museum

I think the word "worship" has been misused in relation to the cat in ancient Egypt. The worship of the god Bastet (a statue in the shape of a cat - the god of beauty) was not due to a respect for the real cat, the domestic cat as a useful companion animal. It was about using and abusing the domestic cat to try and please a god with the intention of improving the life of the worshiper. It was buying good luck. 

It just so happens the god was a cat in this instance and they devised a way to please the god: kill cats. By enlightened modern standards, it is all a completely fabricated load of nonsense at the expense of the vulnerable cat. Note: there are still millions of people who believe this sort of stuff in 2022. For instance, drinking tiger bone wine to improve health etc. is very similar in the underlying superstitions.

If there was a reverence for the domestic cat it was born out of a desire to please the god Bastet. Perhaps they believed they had to have reverence for the cat. That reverence did not translate into respect. These are two completely different concepts, obviously.

At the root of all good cat caretaking there is respect for the cat as a cat. To see the cat as an animal that can be breed in the millions for sacrifice to a god is not a demonstration of respect for the cat. It is the opposite.

Photo: AFP.

Clearly the mentality of the people in Egypt some 2,200 years ago and more will be different to modern people. We have to adjust for that. However, I say that we have to view animal abuse in an absolute sense regardless of the era and by the highest and most enlightened standards. 

This is because being cruel to animals and killing animals for the convenience of people is an absolute act. It is black and white. The cat is alive; the cat is dead. All creatures have a right to life. I don't believe that we can criticise the ancient Egyptians for killing cats for sacrifice but I do believe that we can say that it was cat abuse, full stop.

Ancient Egyptians worshiped Bastet for various reasons; the reasons changed over time indicating the fickle nature of the whole process. Latterly Bastet was a protector of motherhood and fertility. Bastet was a protector of pregnant women and children. Ironic then that the necks of kittens were ritually broken to seek favours from this god (votive offerings). 

Votive offerings are still made today (2012) and are offerings to supernatural forces or beings for favors in return. Personally, I see votive offerings of deliberately killed kittens as an expression of self-indulgent, misplaced beliefs resulting in cat cruelty. 

I know that is a tough judgement but where animal suffering is concerned, I feel I have the right to make tough judgements. It is horribly depressing to realise that similar things happen today. Think about eating a tiger penis to improve your sex life! True. Or killing the domestic cat in a certain brutal way and eating it to improve your health.

This abuse of the cat in ancient Egypt would not have happened if the cat had not been domesticated. It is probable that the god Bastet would not have been invented but for the domestication of the cat. It is argued that domestication of the cat gives power to the human that can lead to abuse of the subservient partner. The relationship between cat and human became potentially distorted.

A study extracting DNA from cat mummies in researching the origins of the domestic cat by Jennifer Kurushima and her colleagues indicate that the domestic cats of ancient Egypt are the forerunners of today's domestic cats. It confirms what we knew already.

Cats were bred in catteries and sold in their millions for sacrifice, Jennifer says. The thousands of mummified cats in tombs and catacombs usually had "ritually broken necks".

"Millions of mummies were offered and buried in areas throughout Egypt", she says. My personal opinion is that we need to adjust our view of the ancient Egyptian's relationship with the cat. Perhaps we think that because the Egyptians were the first to domesticate cats, they liked and respected the cat.

I think it was more to do with using the cat to their advantage both as a utility animal in reducing rodent populations etc. and, as mentioned, to improve fertility or beauty or whatever else they desired through votive offerings. A harsh assessment but probably more truthful that a lot of the regurgitated platitudes on the internet.

The Egyptian Mau is interesting too, being the first domesticated cat - domesticated it is said from the African wildcat. In 2012, the feral Egyptian Mau - you could argue the true and purest Egyptian Mau - is abused and persecuted on the streets of Cairo etc.. There is a charity (EMRO) that has been set up to help and protect them.

By the way, as an afterthought, the cats that were bred in their millions for sacrifice would have been Egyptian Maus; not the sort of refined purebred cat we see today but a cat that was in fact nearer the truer Egyptian Mau simply by the fact that it was nearer the wildcat. They were not breeding for appearance (selective breeding) but for numbers. They were kitten mills or factories.

Associated: My lovely Egyptian Mau in Egypt. Egyptian Mau Belly Flap.

Domestic cats today are significantly smaller and more varied in colour compared to the Ancient Egyptian era

This is a short note to remind us that today's domestic cat is smaller and more varied in coat colour and pattern compared to the domestic cats of Ancient Egypt and earlier.

Domestic cats today are significantly smaller and more varied in colour compared to the Ancient Egyptian era. Image in the public domain.

This is because all the domestic cats of Ancient Egypt were very similar to their wild ancestor the North African wildcat. This is essentially a mackerel/spotted tabby cat and the same size as a large domestic cat nowadays. The average domestic cat size in Ancient Egypt was the same as a current large domestic cat.

In illustrations from Ancient Egypt we see what appear to be semi-domesticated wildcats which is what they were. They were not fully domesticated in those days. No doubt they hunted for most of their nutrition. It is quite hard to visualise all the domestic cats being essentially the same as we are very familiar with a huge variety nowadays. 

Over several thousands of years the domestic cat evolved into a more delicate, smaller creature with a multitude of coat colours and patterns. They developed these new coat types because of informal selective breeding on the back of spontaneous genetic mutations. There was no need for the cats to wear great camouflage. If people liked the coat it stuck and did not fizzle out as it would have in the wild.

The blotched tabby pattern is relatively recent - read about it by clicking the link below:

Evolution of the blotched tabby pattern of domestic cats

World's oldest known pet cemetery

There may be others, currently unknown, but the oldest recorded pet cemetery in the world is in the Egyptian port of Berenice. The map shows you where it is. The archaeologists have been digging in what appears to be a rubbish dump in that city and they have discovered a burial ground which is nearly 2,000 years old. 

The interesting aspect of this pet burial ground is that they have decided that the animals buried there were genuine pets and not sacrifices to the gods. Many thousands of animals particularly cats were bred and killed for sacrifice but this is not the case with these animals. They were often old and buried in a very careful way sometimes with collars and with objects which indicated that they were cared for.

Cat buried at the world's oldest known pet cemetery. Photo: Marta Osypińska

Unsurprisingly the vast majority of the remains are of cats reflecting this era of cat worship which did not genuinely translate to great cat care. Of the 585 animals that they excavated 536 were cats, 32 were dogs; there were 15 monkeys, one fox and one falcon. Not one was mummified. Some were in makeshift coffins. They decided that the animals were old and sick, more evidence that they were genuine pets and looked after until they died of natural causes rather than being killed for sacrifice. In Ancient Egypt often kittens were killed for sacrifice and mummified and cat mummies were sometimes scams by priests. This is one reason why it can't be said to be a golden era for cats. Wild cats were also sacrificed and buried on river banks. The remains of 80,000 wild cats were found on the Nile's riverbanks.

Some of the cats were wearing collars made from iron or beaded necklaces. Sometimes the ornaments were precious. They also found a piece of ceramic with text on it. This is called an ostracon. In this instance the text told the cat's owner not to worry about their cat because someone else was looking after him or her. This seems to be an early version of cat sitting! But it strongly supports that pet ownership was alive and well in Ancient Egypt.

Perhaps at one time people thought that ancient Egyptians did not have a concept of pet ownership or what we prefer to call 'pet guardianship' or caretaking. But that thought was perhaps always misplaced for several reasons one of which is that the first known pet was a wild cat buried with their owner on Cyprus almost 10,000 years ago. That, the experts believe, is evidence of the beginning of cat domestication, pet ownership and the concept of pets.

Berenice is a port as mentioned and perhaps it is a place where more than 2,000 years ago traders came on ships with their companion animals including cats, dogs and the occasional monkey brought from India.

The remains of the animals had been well preserved by the dry Egyptian desert. The photograph shows the remains of a cat buried in a blanket. We can see the cat's canine teeth and we have a glimpse of their incisor teeth as well.

The archaeologist in charge of the dig was researcher Marta Osypińska, a zooarchaeologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.

• https://pictures-of-cats.org/animal-abuse-and-religious-scams-in-ancient-egypt.html
• https://pictures-of-cats.org/why-did-ancient-egyptians-shave-off-their-eyebrows-to-mourn-their-dead-cats.html

P.S. There is one aspect of archeology with which I strongly disagree. They are exhuming the remains of people and pets. Is this not disrespectful of both? We rightly have to get permission and have a good reason to exhume someone buried in a graveyard but when animals and pets are buried thousands of years ago it is a free for all. Something wrong there.

Ubasti - legendary cat and asteroid

Ubasti is another name for the Bast, Bastet or Pasht, the ancient Egyptian goddess who represented as either a seated cat is as a cat-headed woman. Read more about Bastet by clicking this link: Why is Bastet a cat?

Baster. Image: MikeB from images in the public domain.

4257 Ubasti, provisional designation 1987 QA is a stony asteroid. A near earth object about 1.5 kilometres in diameter. It was named after Bastet (Reference: Schmadel, Lutz D. (2007). "(4257) Ubasti". Dictionary of Minor Planet Names. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. p. 365).

90 per cent of animals interred at an ancient Egyptian pet cemetery were cats

A recent archaeological dig in Egypt confirms what we probably already knew, namely that the favoured companion animal by far in ancient Egypt was the domestic cat. The archaeologists have dug up the remains of pets at what is considered to be the world's first pet cemetery. And they say that the vast majority of the skeletons, more than 90%, were cats although there are also dogs, baboons and 2 species of macaque monkey.

Remains of cat at world's first pet cemetry in Egypt. Photo as per photograph.

In all they exposed 585 animals. They were laid out carefully in individual graves which indicates to the archaeologist that this was a pet cemetery at a remote seaport on the western coast of the red Sea, Berenike.

Some of the animals were wearing collars and some showed evidence of illness indicating that they were companion animals. As the animals had not been mummified and there was no sign of a sacrifice at this 2000 year old site, this further supported the view that this was a cemetery.

Berenike was a busy Roman port at the time and founded in 275 BC. They also uncovered remnants of goods from India and other luxury items from across the Empire including fabrics, spices and ceramics.

The scientists, Marta Osypinska and her husband Piotr, who are called 'archaeozoologists', first discovered the cemetery in 2011 when they were excavating a Roman trash dump on the edge of this ancient town.

Apparently some experienced archaeologists said that they were wasting their time in digging up the pets but it has proved enlightening they say.

The research is published in the journal World Archaeology. The site existed as a pet cemetery for about a hundred years from the mid-first century to the mid-second century.

Comment: There was a time when the experts thought that the first domestic cats in the world were pets of the ancient Egyptians. However, it is now believed that the first North African wildcats were domesticated around 10,000 years ago which, as I understand it, is before the Egyptians adopted them as pets as long ago as 3700 BC. 10,000 years ago is about 8000 BC.

It is believed that the domestic cat went through a golden era of adoration as pets of the ancient Egyptians because they created gods in their likeness. I think this is a misconception because many kittens were deliberately killed as sacrifices to the gods. It is believed that these kittens were bred for the purpose of sacrifice.

As is always the case there are those who abuse animals even in countries where a particular animal appears to have been worshipped. My clear impression is that there was far more abuse of animals in general and cats in particular in Ancient Egypt than people care to reflect on. Not a cat loving society if you dig deep.

However, the fact that 90% of the skeletons at the cemetery were cats clearly indicate that they dominated the pet marketplace and were far more popular than dogs at that time.

If ancient Egyptian mummies were prepared for the immortal afterlife why are we digging them up?

It is uncivilised, disrespectful and unethical for archaeologists to dig up the mummified remains of people and their pets from ancient Egyptian sandy graves. They excitedly and eagerly want to discover another ancient coffin to inspect while apparently brushing aside the ethical issues. And this applies to domestic cats and dogs as well. Indeed any other animal, and many species of animal were buried with their owners.

2,500 year old coffins exhumed in Egypt recently. Credits: Xinhua/REX

As I understand it, they were buried in mummified form with their owners to accompany their owners to the afterlife. The afterlife was for eternity. They became immortal and this applies both to their owners and their pets.

What interests me, and indeed what upsets me to a certain extent, is that the intention of the people who buried these bodies was to allow them to travel to the afterlife and live there for eternity. If they are dug up and desecrated like this does it not stop their journey into eternity? Does it stop them being immortal in the eyes of the people who buried them?

Cat mumies - Photo: Getty Images.

I know this is about beliefs rather than facts because we cannot talk about the afterlife and immortality in a factual sense but beliefs are important. We have to respect the beliefs of the people who buried the pets and their owners. In many countries in the world people cannot exhume the remains of the deceased without obtaining permission from the local authorities beforehand.

Why should it be any different with respect to 2,500-year-old remains? Perhaps the archaeologists obtained a licence from the Egyptian authorities but those licences would have been granted come what may. There will be no, in my view, discussion about the ethics of digging up human and pet remains and whether it was uncivilised or not. The commercial aspects and the archaeological interest rides roughshod over the intentions, views and attitudes of the ancient Egyptians who buried them.

Associated: What was the penalty for killing a cat in Ancient Egypt?