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Cats, domestication, ancient Egypt, mythology, sacred animals, artwork, sculptures, history, popularity, pets, human society.
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- Purrfectly American Adventures
Discover the fascinating story of how cats were worshipped in ancient Egypt for bringing good luck and protection. Meet Bastet, the cat-headed goddess, and l...
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- Nini Shorts
Cats were first domesticated in ancient Egypt around 4,000 years ago. They were revered for their hunting skills and played a significant role in Egyptian cu...
Nov 10, 2020 · modern-day Egyptian Mau. The pampered house cats we love so much share a long history with us, one that flowered in Ancient Egypt some 10,000 years ago as two species of wildcats made their way into homes and hearths — the African wildcat (Felis sylvestris lybica) and the jungle cat (Felis chaus). The jungle cat has a calmer temperament than ...
- How Do You Make A Domestic Cat?
- Commensal Relationships
- Cat History and Archaeology
- Cats in Egypt
- Cats in China
- Breeds and Varieties and Tabbies
- Scottish Wildcat
- Sources
There are two difficulties inherent in determining when and how cats were domesticated: one is that domesticated cats can and do interbreed with their feral cousins; the other is that the primary indicator of cat domestication is their sociability or docility, traits not easily identified in the archaeological record. Instead, archaeologists rely o...
Commensal behavior is the scientific name for "hanging around with humans": the word "commensal" comes from Latin"com" meaning sharing and "mensa" meaning table. As applied to different animal species, true commensals live entirely in houses with us, occasional commensals move between houses and outdoor habitats, and obligate commensals are those t...
The oldest archaeological evidence for cats living with humans is from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, where several animal species including cats were introduced by 7500 B.C. The earliest known purposeful cat burial is at the Neolithic siteof Shillourokambos. This burial was of a cat buried next to a human between 9500-9200 years ago. The arch...
Up until very recently, most sources believed that domesticated cats became widespread only after the Egyptian civilization took its part in the domestication process. Several strands of data indicate that cats were present in Egypt as early as the predynastic period, nearly 6,000 years ago. A cat skeleton discovered in a predynastic tomb (ca. 3700...
In 2014, Hu and colleagues reported evidence for early cat-human interactions during the Middle-Late Yangshao (early Neolithic, 7,000-5,000 cal BP) period at the site of Quanhucun, in Shaanxi province, China. Eight F. silvestris cat bones were recovered from three ashy pits containing animal bones, pottery sherds, bone and stone tools. Two of the c...
Today there are between 40 and 50 recognized cat breeds, which humans created by artificial selection for aesthetic traits they preferred, such as body and facial forms, beginning about 150 years ago. The traits selected by cat breeders include coat color, behavior, and morphology—and many of those traits are shared across breeds, meaning they were...
The Scottish wildcat is a large tabby cat with a bushy black ringed tail that is native to Scotland. There are only about 400 left and are thus among the most endangered species in the United Kingdom. As with other endangered species, threats to the wildcat's survival include habitat fragmentation and loss, illegal killing, and the presence of fera...
Bar-Oz G, Weissbrod L, and Tsahar E. 2014. Cats in recent Chinese study on cat domestication are commensal, not domesticated. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences111(10):E876.Bertolini F, Gandolfi B, Kim ES, Haase B, Lyons LA, and Rothschild MF. 2016. Evidence of selection signatures that shape the Persian cat breed. Mammalian Genome27(3):144-155.Dodson J, and Dong G. 2016. What do we know about domestication in eastern Asia? Quaternary Internationalin press.Fredriksen A. 2016. Of wildcats and wild cats: Troubling species-based conservation in the Anthropocene. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space34(4):689-705.A new exhibition “Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt,” opening Oct. 14 in the Smithsonian’s newly renovated Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, explores how Egyptians regarded and revered cats for some 2,600 years. Antonietta Catanzariti, a postdoctoral curatorial fellow at the Freer|Sackler and specialist in art of the ancient Near East ...
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Long before cats became stars of the internet, they enjoyed great fame in ancient Egypt. The exhibition “Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt” explores the role and meaning of cats through a selection of works of art from the world-famous Egyptian collections of the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition, on view at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Oct. 14–Jan.
