Because Egypts love cats
Introduction
Imagine living in a time and a place where each home was full of small and dangerous beasts. Some new threat lurked in each corner: rough hidden in clay jars, rats that spoil massive amounts of stored grain, poisonous scorpions that crawl under the cribs. In this time and place, ancient Egypt, there was a creature that could make the world safe from these little monsters: the cat.
Developing
The same funny creatures that now sleep about our pillows were companions who saved the life of the people of Ancient Egypt. It is not surprising that generations of Egyptians were attracted to worshiping them.
One of the first deities of Ancient Egypt was the goddess Mafdet, which was very revered by people looking for protection against poisonous animals such as snakes and scorpions. He showed it with a variety of fierce forms, most of the time as a woman with a lion’s head, cheese or domestic cat (although sometimes he showed it as a woman with a woman’s head). Because cats could protect themselves from the small monsters that made Egyptian households insecure, Mafdet was considered the protector of the home and the kingdom itself.
Later in the history of Egypt, the goddess Bastet (sometimes simply Bast) replaced Mafdet as the chosen feline goddess. Like Mafdet, it was considered a fierce protector of the home (and especially children and royalty), largely due to the recognized capacity of cats to kill snakes, scorpions and other allegations. Her followers called her Ra’s eye, the God of the sun, and believed that she observed the world fiercely and protected Egypt against the invasion.
Like the Egyptians really domesticated their cats, making them valuable members of the family instead of simple semi-salvage animals that stalked and protected the houses of their owners, the image of Bastet became much softer: it became a goddess of thefamily, fertility and love. The Egyptians began to consider their cats as important and affectionate members of their families, and treated them with so much respect and dignity as their own children.
conclusion
The followers of the cult of Bastet mummified their cats and cried them in the same way that they cried the members of the human family, and in the same way that the lovers of the cats we cried our own hairy members of the family today. We tend to joke about how cats feel entitled to worship. Anyone who has met a spoiled cat knows that cats have never forgotten the days they were worshiped. The cult of cats in ancient Egypt was well founded. The cats once saved lives by defending the families of the As. Without them, civilization as we know it would never have survived!
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