Ancient images: cats, or big cats?

cheetahs? In some cases, you can’t tell, because of the poor condition of the object—pieces broken off, weathered by time or otherwise damaged. But one general rule helps: domestic cats did (and do) have triangular-shaped ears, while leopards, cheetahs, lions, and most other big cats have rounded ears. This is reflected in ancient art—usually. Ancient craftsmen had talent, but they weren’t always sticklers for details.

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The lynching

In ancient Egypt, as we’ve already noted, killing a cat was a capital offense. Thanks to the adoration that people felt for cats, there rarely had to be any kind of judicial trials, for the people gladly took justice into their own hands, killing an offender without waiting for the slow wheels of the legal process. As you might imagine, this kept the killing of cats to a minimum. A person who killed a cat by accident was in an awkward situation, but he could avoid lynching by running as far as possible from the dead animal and, once someone discovered the body, joining in the loud lamentation.

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The cat in the moon

Did you know that the ancient Egyptians associated cats with worship of the moon? The cat was sacred to the goddess Isis, who symbolized the moon. The cat too was believed to be a symbol of the moon, partly because cats are more active after dark, partly because the pupil of the cat’s eye reminded people of the waxing and waning of the moon. A cat’s pupils can change from the narrowest slits to the widest circles—exactly as the moon does.

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Herodotus in Greece

The Greek historian Herodotus visited Greece in the fifth century B.C. and, happily for posterity, wrote about what he saw there. He described the worship of the cat-headed goddess Bast, whom he (and other Greeks) identified with the Greek goddess Artemis. Herodotus witnessed a Bast pameran at the city of Per-Bastet, attended by some 700,000 men and women. As Herodotus describes it, the “worship” turned into a veritable orgy, with lots of wine being consumed, frequent “lifting of the skirts” and a general “girls gone wild” atmosphere—which makes sense, since cats were associated with fertility and reproduction. According to Herodotus, the Bast pameran drew more people together than any other pameran in Egypt.

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Cats and sistrums

goddess Bast found in Egypt, she is often depicted holding a sistrum, a musical instrument (or, more appropriately, noisemaker) similar to a maraca. Worship in ancient times often involved a lot of ritual dancing and music, and in the worship of Bast, large groups of women would have been dancing and rattling their sistrums. The sistrums themselves were often carved with cat images.

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Ruling from Cat City

country from the city of Per-Bastet, or Bubastis, a city especially sacred to the goddess Bast. In fact, the city’s name means “house of the goddess Bast.” Not surprisingly, one of the pharaohs of Shishak’s dynasty actually ruled under the name Pamiu—meaning “Tomcat,” a highly appropriate name for a ruler who expects to be protected by a cat-headed goddess.

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Ra, the Great Tomcat

sun the following morning. Numerous paintings have been found showing Ra, the “Great Tomcat,” using a knife to slay Apophis.

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Cats in dreams

ancient Egypt. If you dreamed about a cat, it was a good omen but not related to sex. It was a sign of prosperity to come—specifically, a good harvest. This makes perfect sense: cats were the exterminators of rodents, which were always a threat to human food supplies, especially grains. If you dreamed of a cat, it meant your harvest—and thus your fortune—was in good hands (or good paws).

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Sacred and four-legged

Travelers to ancient Egypt got the impression that the Egyptians literally worshipped cats. Did they? Aside from the love they showed to their own pets, they did have an even higher respect for “temple animals,” the animals kept at the temples of the Egyptians’ many gods, one of whom was Bast, the goddess with the woman’s body and cat’s head. The temples of Bast had, naturally, cats on the premises, and they were worshipped—or, more accurately, they were honored as the earthly representatives of Bast herself. Bast herself was far away in heaven, but humans could honor her—and definitely did—in the form of the temple cats.

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