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Video: Feline Cult: Why did Ancient Egypt extol the world of the feline?
2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55
They have been living next to us for over 10 thousand years and still remain the most mysterious and enigmatic creatures.
Over the centuries, the feline family has been treated differently. They were credited with supernatural and mystical properties, which often frightened and repelled superstitious citizens, sometimes reaching the level of bloodshed.
But in history there was a time that cats, if they could speak, would boldly be called golden - literally and figuratively.
We are talking, of course, about Ancient Egypt, where graceful animals were literally deified. They were immortalized on papyrus and tombs. No funds and precious metals were spared for these purposes.
The image of a cat was closely associated with the concepts of goodness, love, fertility, motherhood and protective power. Young Egyptian women wore amulets with images of cats and prayed that the gods would send them as many children as kittens are depicted on their amulets.
Goddess of the hearth
Not far from the Nile Delta in the city of Bubastis was the religious center of the cat goddess Bastet. She was the daughter of the supreme gods Osiris and Isis and held a special place in Egyptian mythology.
The goddess of the hearth, who personified sunlight and moonlight, was often depicted as a woman with a cat's head.
Children wore amulets with the image of Bastet so that the goddess would protect them from diseases and scorpion bites. In some cases, they even got tattoos depicting a cat.
But Bastet was not the only feline goddess. In the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, you can find the image of the Great Mato - a bright cat that saves people from the serpent Apop, personifying chaos and evil.
Mummification
Ancient Egyptian cats resembled modern representatives of the Abyssinian breed. They were of medium size, slender and reddish in color. Today we know about it thanks to the cat mummies that have been found by archaeologists.
The cat's death was a real tragedy for any Egyptian family. Mourning for the deceased animal lasted about 70 days, while family members shaved their heads and eyebrows as a sign of loss.
The dead animals were wrapped in linen cloth, anointed with fragrant oils and embalmed. To make their pets “feel good” in the afterlife, toys were placed in their graves, with which they loved to play during their lifetime.
The mummy was placed in a limestone or wooden sarcophagus, sometimes decorated with gold, if the animal lived in a rich man's house.
Passion for the feline
The cult of the cat once played a cruel joke with the Egyptians. The Persian king Cambyses II, knowing about the sacred status of the animal, used the forbidden technique during the siege of the border city of Pelusia in 525 BC. e.
The army of the Persians, according to the stories of Greek historians, could not capture the fortified city, and went to the trick. Cambyses ordered each soldier to carry a cat as a human shield.
Pharaoh Psammetichus III could not give the order to attack, because innocent cats could suffer from spears and arrows. The Egyptians surrendered without a fight, and the Persian king Cambyses founded the 27th dynasty by conquering Egypt.
Cat-Commodity Relationship
On the banks of the Nile, cats were tamed for a thousand years before spreading to other countries. The Egyptians themselves in every possible way prevented the cats from being taken out, because this meant that the animals were taken from the Pharaoh - for this crime the death penalty was threatened.
Aware of the value of Egyptian cats, Phoenician traders risked their lives to kidnap and sell animals to other countries. Egyptian travelers, knowing about this untidiness in trade, bought and stole cats if they saw them in foreign lands.
But such an influential and infectious cult of cats could not stay on the sidelines for too long. Figurines, amulets and musical instruments depicting cats were found in Toulouse (France), and in the UK archaeologists have discovered mass graves of cats.
Around 1500 BC domestic cats on merchant ships were brought to India, Burma and China, but the cat remained a rare animal until the beginning of our millennium.
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