FEW animals have captivated the collective imagination of humanity as much as the cat. And by this I don’t mean big cats or Tiger Forces, but felis catus known commonly as the house cat.

Cats began living alongside humans as far back as 120,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, based on genetic research that shows that this was when the last common ancestor between feral cats and today’s house cats can be found.

But cohabitation with humans isn’t the same as domestication as we know it, and shows only that at this point cats were ‘commensal domesticates’, meaning that they, along with rats, sparrows and so on, were attracted to human settlements presumably for the free food and the pleasure of knocking things off Neolithic shelves.

Fast forward and around 9,500 in Cyprus we find evidence of the ceremonial burial of cats, where a deceased human was found buried along with his cat, presumably so that he can’t be ignored by his feline in the afterlife. If nothing else, this shows that by this time cats had become a part of the household and were treasured companions.

Cats were treasured companions.

Of course, the formal record of domestication starts with the ancient Egyptians who took their love for these felines to another level, even elevating them to godhood. That, too, likely had practical purposes, as the very existence and power of Egypt depended in great measure on its ability to produce wheat and to store it for times of famine. If the government were to fail in this crucial duty, it could shake the very foundations of Egypt’s existence.

This meant that controlling rats, which would routinely try and get into the food stores was critical to ensuring the continuation of the rule of the god-kings, and that an animal that specialised in hunting those pests logically had to be a gift from the gods. On a household level, given that cats would come indoors when it was hot, as it often is in Egypt, they proved invaluable when it came to chasing off or killing venomous snakes, scorpions and other potentially deadly pests.

Thus, over time, the Egyptians began worshipping Mafdet and then Bastet, both cat-headed goddesses respectively revered as the protector of the pharaoh and protector of the home and hearth and the guardian of women’s secrets. The latter was important enough to merit her own city, called Bubastis or the ‘House of Bastet’.

But the Egyptians’ love for cats wasn’t just a religious mandate and the Egyptians displayed their affection in very public and meaningful ways. The Greek historian Herodotus spent a lot of time recording these behaviours, and tells us that the death of a cat was a time of mourning for the entire household, which would shave their eyebrows as a sign of mourning, and when it came to the death of royal cats who lived in the palace of the pharaohs, a 70-day period of mourning was observed. Cats were more important than material possessions, Herodotus tells us, while relating that when a house caught fire, the inhabitants would prioritise saving the cats over their own household goods.

And woe betide you if you happened to kill a cat, even by accident, as you would immediately be put to death, with some antemortem torture thrown in. Foreigners weren’t exempt either, and historical records state than when a Roman cart driver accidentally ran over a cat, an Egyptian soldier killed him on the spot.

Sometimes this love for cats was used against the Egyptians, as when the Persian King Cambyses II had his attacking army herd cats before them and painted cats on their shields while facing the Egyptian defenders. Rather than commit blasphemy by striking this holy animal (or even its depiction) the Egyptians surrendered.

While few took it to the extent that the Egyptians did, cats remained loved and valued across cultures and in different historical eras (they get a mention in the Mahabharata) and in the Islamic world cats remain valued largely thanks to the Holy Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) love for the animal.

However Middle Ages Europe was an exception; here, thanks to the Church’s tradition of turning the figures venerated by ‘pagan’ cultures into villains, the once-holy feline started to become associated with black magic, witches and the devil himself in much the same way as the pagan ‘horned god’ transformed into the image of Satan. In 1233, Pope Gregory IX issued a ruling linking cats to Satanism that led to the mass killing of cats, which, some argue, exacerbated the black plague by allowing plague-carrying rats to run rampant. This was, however, a historical aberration.

Cats remain an object of worship even today, at least as far as the global cathedral of the internet goes, and cat videos are estimated to drive about 15 per cent of internet traffic thanks to the millions of people searching for cute cat videos on a daily basis. Which, in my opinion, is just purrfect.

The writer is a journalist.
Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2023