Egyptian Cat
Cats were praised for killing venomous snakes and protecting the pharaoh since at least the first dynasty of egypt.
Egyptian cat. The deity mut was also depicted as a cat and in the company of a cat. The two main breeds still common today which come from egypt are the egyptian mau and abyssinian cat. The spots of the mau occur on only the tips of the hairs of its coat. The religion which focused on the worshipping of animals such as cats flourished in upper and lower egypt thousands of years after cats had been domesticated.
The goddess bastet was the cat goddess which was originally a warlikecat lioness but eventually became associated with domesticated cats. In ancient egypt cats were considered sacred beings something cats have never forgotten. They are one of the few naturally spotted breeds of domesticated cat. Cats were worshipped by the egyptian people for various reasons.
Facts about egyptian cats inform the readers with a sacred animal during the ancient egyptian period. The worshiping of cats started when the ancient egyptians realized that cats could protect them against tiny rodents and insects who were destroying their food and houses. They were even buried alongside pharaohs queens. Numerous statuettes such as this were made during.
They called the cats as mau. Let us get other interesting facts about egyptian cats below. It is considered a rare breed. In egyptian the word mau means cat this striking and dignified cat resembles the cats worshipped by the ancient egyptians.
It is sometimes suggested that cats were introduced into egypt from persia around 2000 b c e or from nubia during the new kingdom but this is unlikely due to significant evidence that cats lived in egypt before these dates. The iconic image of an egyptian cat arises from objects such as the leaded bronze statuette from the metropolitan museum of art pictured below. The first domestication of cats took place in the fertile crescent dated back 10 000 years ago from the middle eastern subspecies of wildcat. The egyptian mau is the fastest and only naturally occurring spotted breed of domestic cat.
Like the abyssinian these cats resemble cougars although they are actually a hybrid between jungle cats felis chaus and domestic cats. Egyptian maus are a small to medium sized short haired cat breed. Honoring your little loved feline with an egyptian cat name is a fitting tribute to the dignity and elegance that we love about our cats. Skeletal remains of.
There is evidence that the majority of the world s cats can trace their ancestry to an egyptian cat. The cat may not have been. Cats in ancient egypt were represented in social and religious practices of ancient egypt for more than 3 000 years. Several ancient egyptian deities were depicted and sculptured with cat like heads such as mafdet bastet and sekhmet representing justice fertility and power.
Ancient egyptian cats enjoyed a sacred status in the religion of this country and cat deities existed even before the formation of the kingdom itself in 3100 bc. They were popular because they kept away vermin killed snakes and caused various other blessings for the people. The chausie is another egyptian cat breed although it is a hybrid cat and not recognized by associations such as the cfa.