Cat History and mythology

Egyptian Cats
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The earliest written records of cat domestication date to ancient Egypt circa 4000 BC, where cats were kept to keep mice and rats away from grain stores. However, a recently discovered gravesite in Shillourokambos, Cyprus, dating to 7500 BC contains the skeletons of a ceremonially buried human and a young cat, although cats are not native to Cyprus. This is thought to indicate that cats were domesticated (or perhaps just tamed) at least this early. The cat found in the Cyprus grave was more similar to the ancestral wildcat species than to modern housecats.

Ancient Egyptians regarded cats as embodiments of the goddess Bast, also known as Bastet or Thet. The penalty for killing a cat was death, and when a cat died it was sometimes mummified in the same way as a human.

The speed of spread of the Black Death in the 14th century had many people (religion being the way of life) believing that the Devil was in some way responsible for the disease. The Pope declared that cats, who were known to roam freely, were in league with the devil. This declaration was aided by the belief that cats (especially black cats) often acted as Witches' familiars. Because of the declaration, a great many cats were killed in the very religious Europe. The sudden decrease in cats led to a massive increase in rats and the plague-carrying fleas that fed upon them.

The cat is one of the 12-year cycle of animals in the Vietnamese zodiac. It does not, however, appear in the Chinese zodiac. Legend states that the rat, who invited the animals to the Jade Emperor's palace to be chosen for the zodiac, forgot to invite the cat, so the cat declared the rat its natural enemy.

also see: CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF CATS.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Cat" and from Cat-Purr.com

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