Everything about the origins and history of the domestic cat! It is not known precisely when the friendship between cats and humans began; we can confirm their presence through palaeontology, but establishing exactly when the domestication of the cat started is a far more difficult task. Nevertheless, certain fossils attest to the cat's presence since very ancient times. In New Mexico, in the Sandia Mountains, cat bones dating back 10,000 years have been found; other finds, dating back 8,000 years, came to light during archaeological excavations in south-western Anatolia. Let's discover how the cat was regarded in Ancient Egypt right through to the present day..
Origins and history of the domestic cat
There is disagreement among the claims of certain naturalists: some state that our domestic cat (Felis catus) is a wild descendant of the European wildcat (Felis silvestris). Others, however, maintain that its nature is entirely wild, like that of the big cats. According to the latter, it is therefore unlikely that the small cat would have agreed to interact with humans, given that it is a type of cat that lives in the forests of many countries, surviving thanks to its hunting skills and feeding on small animals such as rodents, birds, hares and snakes, remaining in the habitats that allow it to find such prey.
The domestic cat, therefore, absolutely cannot be the Felis silvestris. According to the views of other ethologists and naturalists, the cat most inclined to accept the presence and close proximity of humans is the African wildcat (Felis lybica). Indeed, it ventures close to human settlements, also feeding on human food scraps. It is therefore far more likely that, in ancient times, humans approached and raised wildcat kittens, and that the crossbreeding of these cats gave rise to our common domestic cat.
It is not known precisely what the intentions of people at the time were in keeping cats. It is known, unfortunately, that during times of famine and war the cat was also used as a food source; although cat farming for food purposes was very costly. Another hypothesis worth considering is therefore that of domestication aimed at eliminating rodents. For this reason, we might begin to speak of the domestication of the cat from around 4,000 BC, when agriculture began to develop considerably, raising the issue of protecting grain stores.
History of the cat in Ancient Egypt
Let's discover the history of the cat in Ancient Egypt! We have evidence of coexistence between cats and people going back to at least 3000 BC, thanks to iconographic discoveries; however, the reasons why the ancient Egyptian people moved from respect for the animal that protected their granaries to outright deification of it remain shrouded in mystery. Numerous Egyptian monuments dedicated to this extraordinary domestic animal have been found, a clear sign that it was deeply venerated. One example is the cult of Goddess Bastet, a deity with the appearance of a cat, Goddess of sexuality and fertility; always depicted holding the sistrum, a symbol of the harmony of the world, and already worshipped as far back as 3000 BC.
In every Egyptian household there were domestic cats: children were even consecrated to them, and were required to wear a medallion bearing the feline image for their entire lives. The death of a cat was a cause of great distress for its family members, who would shave their eyebrows as a sign of mourning. The little body would be embalmed and taken to Bubastis, a city consecrated to cats and a place of pilgrimage during the festivals celebrated in their honour.
As testament to this, at the end of the last century cat necropolises were discovered in several locations, such as Bubastis and Beni Hasan, containing hundreds of thousands of small mummies wrapped in coloured bandages, upon which the profile of a cat had been drawn. Thanks to these discoveries, as well as paintings and sculptures, a first clear distinction could be made between the cats that existed at the time. The cult of the cat reached its peak in 950 BC, when it became punishable by death to mistreat a cat or cause its death, even accidentally.
The spread and domestication of the cat
Before long, the fame of cats in Ancient Egypt spread throughout the world, celebrated for their exceptional skill at catching mice. So much so that a veritable clandestine trade in cats soon emerged, carried out by unscrupulous merchants who defied Egypt's harshest penalties for anyone who threatened the safety of these creatures. Herodotus, a great writer of the time, tells us that Phoenician merchants secretly smuggled Egyptian cats on behalf of wealthy Greek families. This trade severely damaged relations between Egypt and Greece, also because, as Herodotus goes on to recount: "the Greeks never once thought of breeding these cats themselves; when they ran out, they were replaced with others, always supplied by the same traders".
Word also reached Rome, and the Romans too wanted specimens, which necessarily had to be brought from Egypt. Previously, they had used the weasel to keep mice at bay. Soldiers who had served in Egypt were asked to secretly bring specimens back home; these were loaded onto the merchant ships that sailed the Mediterranean. And so the domestic cat began to spread, finding a suitable habitat even on islands. It reached every corner of the world thanks to merchant vessels, though it did not always receive the same appreciation that the Egyptians had shown it.
It is easy to imagine why people say "a cat has 9 lives". In the past, our feline friends were indeed victims of ancient ritual sacrifices; persecuted as "witches' accomplices" with the rise of Christianity, and eaten for lack of food during times of war. Despite all of this, they have managed to survive wars and plagues, adapting to all environmental conditions and gracing our homes with their wonderful company to this day.
