Evidence shows cats living with Egyptians since 3700 B.C.

by William Atkins

Monday, 19 November 2007

A recent discovery of cat bones in a grave, which also contained other animals, shows evidence that cats were first domesticated in ancient Egypt around 5,700 years ago.

Belgium researcher Veerle Linseele, of the Center for Archaeological Sciences at Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and fellow-colleagues found a cat skeleton in a cemetery in Hierakonpolis. The ancient gravesite in southern Egypt contained the remains of the cat species thought to be Felis silvestris, also called the Wild Cat, the ancestor of the domestic cat. It is a member of the family of cats called Felidae, a hunter of small mammals, birds, and other such creatures.

Work performed by Linseele at the Hierakonpolis dig site is found at InteractiveDig, online page of Archaeology magazine: http://www.archaeology.org/interactive/hierakonpolis/animals.html.

Researchers had already known that cats had first been domesticated by Egyptians sometime around the third millennium B.C. For instance, Egyptians kept cats for their perceived religious importance. However, a more specific time of domestication was not known, only that domestication occurred sometime during this one-thousand-year range of time.

The cat bones, of a young male, contained two leg fractures—a broken left humerus bone and a right femur bone—which had healed. The researchers concluded that such an injury would have doomed the cat in the wild. Consequently, the cat was assumed to have been in captivity prior to its injury.

The time of healing of such an injury would further conclude that the cat was in captivity at least four weeks during the healing process and before its death. The cat, along with several baboons and one baby hippopotamus, died, according to the researchers, probably due to a ritual mass killing.

The conclusions of the Belgium researchers are found in the article “Evidence for early cat taming in Egypt,” in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Co-authors to the article include Wim Van Neer and Stan Hendrick.

Earlier evidence of domestication of cats has been found on the Greek island of Cyprus, from around 7500 B.C., about 9,500 years ago. For instance, a cat/human burial in Shillourokambos, located in southern Cyprus, was found from an era between about 9,500 to 9,200 years ago. This finding seems to be the oldest archaeological evidence of cat domestication.

Around the sixth millennium B.C. in Turkey, female figurines carrying cat-like bodies have been discovered. These cat-like bodies have not been positively identified as cat, however.

However, the discovery by Dr. Linseele seems to be the most conclusive evidence about the early domestication of cats, at least in ancient Egypt. Scientists continue to perform research to make a more “purrrfect” identification on the first domestication of cats.

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