Cats are man’s favorite pets. And they tamed them back in Ancient Egypt, more than five thousand years ago. In those days, the Egyptians did not just love cats. They deeply revered them and considered them sacred animals.
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Historians believe that such a reverent attitude towards cats in Egypt is quite natural. The country was agricultural, people grew grain, whose stocks had to be protected from the attacks of rodents. Therefore, cats that exterminated mice and rats were held in high esteem.
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One way or another, the ancient Egyptians really appreciated the mustachioed pets very highly. This is evidenced by the fact that they depicted the goddess of joy, motherhood and fertility of Bastet as a cat. And the supreme sun god Ra sometimes appeared in the form of a red cat, which plunges the snake Apophis.
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In the famous cat temple in the city of Bubastis, every spring a holiday was celebrated in honor of the goddess Bastet. Not far from the religious building, archaeologists discovered a huge cemetery of cats. These animals were mummified and even buried in special tombs. And along with some deceased pets, caring owners laid mice so that in the afterlife their pets would not suffer from hunger.
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Sources conveyed to our days amazing evidence of the anxious attitude of the ancient Egyptians to cats. For example, the one who dared to kill this sacred animal, inevitably had to be executed. When the mustachioed pet departed into another world, the whole family mourned for it, people even shaved their eyebrows.
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The ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote that the owners rushed into the houses embraced by fire in order to save their pets who were there. There were even defeats in battles due to the cat cult. So, in the battle in 525, the Persians, stepping on the Egyptians, used cats as a kind of human shield. As a result, the Egyptians did not dare to shoot and were defeated.
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The love of cats in ancient Egypt was so strong that it was forbidden to export these animals from the country. Traders and travelers, however, did it secretly. As a result, the first long-haired cat breeds appeared in Europe.
