On the Egyptian origin of the domestic cat
Léonard GINSBURG, Georgette DELIBRIAS, Anne MINAUT-GOUT, Hélène VALLADAS and Alain ZIVIE
Translated by Matthew Carrano, Department of Anatomical Sciences SUNY at Stony Brook, May (1999)
Bull. Mus. natl. Hist. nat., Paris, 4th series, 13, 1991, section C, no. 1-2: 107-113.
Abstract
All specialists admit (ZEUNER, 1963; SCHAUENBERG, 1972; PETTER, 1973) that our domestic cat, Felis catus, originated in Egypt, from which it was imported to Europe during the Greco-Roman period. The presence of domestic cats in Egypt is attested to by Herodotus, who visited this country at the end of the 6th century B.C., and by numerous frescoes that ornament the private Theban tombs of the New Kingdom. Among these we cite two very 
significant examples here. In the tomb of the scribe Nakht, which dates from the reign of Thoutmosis IV, around 1425 B.C., an admirable fresco shows a banquet scene. Some offerings are deposed before the couple Nakht and his spouse Tawy. Under their seat a striped cat eats a fish. It does not seem questionable that this is a familiar animal, nourished by its masters. Another tomb is that of May, which like the preceding one dates from the 18th dynasty. A striped cat is found in the same placement under the seat of the noble woman, but here it is attached to a foot of the seat by a leash attached to a collar that it wears on its neck. It has an angry air, turns it head, opens its mouth as if to meow in rage or spit, and tries to remove the leash with its left paw. Earlier in time, a nominal designation implies the domestication of the cat: at the beginning of the 11th dynasty, around 2100 B.C., the mother of a functionary of Mentouhotep I is called “the cat” (POSENER et al., 1959).
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