CATS IN ANCIENT EGYPT

Evidence of how the Egyptians carried on their love and adoration of cats can be seen in many things, including the everyday art of the Egyptians.

Images of cats began to appear in Egyptian art starting around 2600 B.C., but took on a more prominent role after 1600 B. C. They were see in paintings curled up under their owners' chairs, chewing on bones, playing with one another.

They were also seen, in what must be the earliest record of the human effort to confine these independent wanderers, tied to the leg of a chair with a red ribbon.

One painting shows the mother of Pharaoh Aknaton at dinner, slipping bits of food to a kitty under her chair. Another depicts a tabby cat eagerly hunting for birds in the company men as part of a hunting party.

Egyptian artists painted cats by the hundreds on the walls of tombs and on papyrus. They sculpted cats in bronze, gold, stone, and wood. they molded them out of faience, and carved their images into ivory.

Young Egyptian women used cat amulets, called "utchats," as fertility tokens, praying to have as many children as the number of kittens shown on the amulet.

The word "utchat" spread through the world along with the cats themselves, eventually becoming the root for the word cat in English, French, Italian, Russian, Hindustani, and many other Indo- European languages.

National Geographic - Egypt Eternal - The Quest for Lost Tombs/Egypt - Secrets of the Pharaohs (2-pack)

Egyptian Mythology

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