CAT LORE

Cats and humans have interacted for thousands of years. These animals have figured in the history of many nations, are the subject of much superstition and legend, and are a favorite subject of artists and writers.

History and Legend

The earliest archaeological record of cats and people together comes from a 9,500-year-old grave discovered in a Neolithic village on the island of Cyprus.

A human was found buried with a cat, along with seashells and other decorations. Even older Neolithic engravings and pottery depict cats, indicating the animals may have had some religious significance.

The ancient Egyptians may have been breeding tame cats over 4,000 years ago. Cats became objects of worship in ancient Egypt because of their ability to keep down the rodent population in the country's economically important grain fields along the Nile.

The Egyptian cat goddess Bast, or Bastet, became associated with fertility and childbearing. Egyptian cats were also used for sport by their owners.

Attached to leashes, these animals hunted birds for the family table; a boomerang flung by the master brought the birds down and the cats, unleashed, would retrieve them. Because they were economically useful and were believed to ensure many children for a family, cats were so revered that they were mummified and buried either with their owners or in specially designated cemeteries.

Despite Egyptian laws that forbade the removal of the sacred cats, Phoenician sailors smuggled them out of the country. Cats were traded along with other treasures from the Middle East and in antiquity could be found throughout the Mediterranean area.

Archaeological evidence indicates that the Romans were the first to bring cats to the British Isles.

Throughout much of the Middle Ages, cats were feared and hated. Because of their nocturnal habits, they were believed to consort with the devil.

This association with witchcraft has been responsible for many acts of cruelty toward cats through the centuries. The Renaissance, in contrast, was the golden age for cats.

Almost everyone owned one, from members of royal families and their staffs down to the peasantry.

The first domestic cats in North America arrived with the colonists and were employed to keep the rodent population under control in the settlers' fields, barns, and homes.

Cats are said to have played an important part in keeping rats out of the California gold mines.

In India cats often played an important part in religious or occult ceremonies. In South America the Inca revered sacred cats; cats are represented in pre-Columbian Peruvian artifacts. Cats continue to be worshiped as deities in countries such as Thailand and China.

Cats in Art and Literature

Egyptian tomb paintings and sculpture are among the earliest representations of the domestic cat. Images of cats appear on Greek coins of the 5th century bc; cats were later depicted in Roman mosaics and paintings and on earthenware, coins, and shields.

The 8th-century Irish manuscript of the Gospels, the Book of Kells, has a representation of cats and kittens in one of its illuminations. Later artists, such as the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci and his German contemporary Albrecht Dürer, are among the many who included cats in their works.

Although the Old Testament makes no mention of cats, the Babylonian Talmud tells of their admirable qualities and encourages the breeding of cats “to help keep the houses clean.” Memorable literary cats include the British writer Rudyard Kipling's “Cat That Walked by Himself” (one of the Just So Stories, 1902), the delightful cats of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939) by the Anglo-American poet T. S. Eliot, and the Cheshire Cat, joint creation of the English writer Lewis Carroll and the illustrator Sir John Tenniel in the children’s classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long-running musical Cats (1981) was based on Eliot’s poems.

Many contemporary comic strips and animated cartoons also contain feline characters that delight ailurophiles (lovers of cats) of all ages.