Egyptian cat art

January 6, 2015 • 10:30 am

Here are four nice carved cats in the Louvre, a photo tw**ted by Sarah Scott (h/t Matthew Cobb):

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I’ve been to the Louvre many times, and looked at their extensive Egyptian collection which includes many cat mummies, but never saw this piece. For photos of Egyptian cats art, go here and here, and see here for more on the mummies. Here’s one mummified cat from Wikipedia:

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This one appears to have been removed from its wrapping, for most cat mummies look like the photo below, and Akhet Egyptology notes:

X-rays show that the cats were often killed by having their necks broken. The bodies were then dried out using Natron salt, this process was similar to that used for human mummification. They were then elaborately wrapped with the forelegs lying down the front and the hind legs drawn up beside the pelvis.

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I was fascinated to discover recently that of the thousands of cat mummies that have been examined (there were so many that many were once ground up for fertilizer), every one is a tabby. This shows that there was no selection on cats for unusual coat colors until more recent times, for the ancestral cat, Felis silvestris lybica—the African wildcat—also has a tabby cat. It may also imply that there was little selection on cats of any sort, and they may have been largely feral. Many feel (I among them) that cats in fact largely domesticated themselves, with the braver and more human-tolerant wildcats getting more food (they were either fed by humans or had a lower “flight distance” from nearby people when hunting rodents in their villages), and hence leaving more offspring. That’s natural selection for tameness based on genetic variation for behavioral traits.  But it’s purely speculative, for the evolutionary origin of domestic cats is lost in the mists of time.

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18 thoughts on “Egyptian cat art”

  1. Rudyard Kipling agrees that cats domesticated themselves. I think that’s something almost any keen observer of cats understands. I am happy to see that recent analysis of cat mummies proves him right.

    And if you haven’t read “The Cat that Walked by Himself”, please go read it.

  2. Aww, how cute…. They must have really loved their cats.

    X-rays show that the cats were often killed by having their necks broken …

    Wait, what?! TF.

    I guess I’d always assumed that mummified cats had been beloved pets being honored, like people who buy tombstones for the departed “member of our family.” I didn’t think they’d been killed in order to make a mummy. Unless it’s a case of allowing owners to take them into an afterlife, perhaps.

    Silly me. I need to be careful about importing modern attitudes into ancient cultures.

    The cat mummies seem a little grimmer, now. “Here, kitty, kitty ….”

    1. Sounds like they considered their cats possessions. They thus followed owners to their death along with wives and slaves! Nowadays, we recognize who is really in charge … ah, social evolution!

      1. Makes one reflect on just how early d*gs were being selected for breeds. Sighthounds are a far cry from wolves…

        I love the sighthound esthetic.

  4. the evolutionary origin of domestic cats is lost in the mists of time

    So, purrfectly opaque? Or maybe it used to be known, but it’s meow unknown…

  5. “In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.”

    Terry Pratchett

  6. There’s some evidence that it’s about 9500 years since several related species of North African wild-cats decided to find a species that could be made to feed, house and keep them warm, cleverly setting it up so their target species believed that it was domesticating the cat, rather than the other way around. The ploy, as I understand it, involved hunting rodents in the target species’ grain stores.

    2. The first grain-store-haunting cat found that the cobra was already inside, and the falcon perched on a nearby rooftop.

  8. I remember hearing that the cats used for mummification were ritually killed as an offering. I do not know to what or to why. They were of course also revered, and yes that does seem messed up.

  9. Curious that the wrappings don’t at all resemble a cat’s coat. Anybody know if there’s any symbolic significance to them?

    b&

  10. Is that a–gasp–kitten in the last photo? Or some appendage of the strange-looking guy on the left?

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