Bastet
Source: 'Les Merveilles du Louvre', Hachette 1958
Cat mummy
Source: 'Ancient Egypt' by Lionel Casson, Time-Life books
Cats
Cats were domesticated during the Middle Kingdom and played an important part in keeping the rodents at bay who destroyed sizable portions of the vital grain stores. Herodotus seems to have heard stories about how male lions kill cubs after taking over a pride and misapplied it to house cats.Of the animals that live with men there are great numbers, and would be many more but for the accidents which befall the cats. For when the females have produced young they are no longer in the habit of going to the males, and these seeking to be united with them are not able. To this end then they contrive as follows,--they either take away by force or remove secretly the young from the females and kill them (but after killing they do not eat them), and the females being deprived of their young and desiring more, therefore come to the males, for it is a creature that is fond of its young.
Moreover when a fire occurs, the cats seem to be divinely possessed; for while the Egyptians stand at intervals and look after the cats, not taking any care to extinguish the fire, the cats slipping through or leaping over the men, jump into the fire; and when this happens, great mourning comes upon the Egyptians.
And in whatever houses a cat has died by a natural death, all those who dwell in this house shave their eyebrows only, but those in which a dog has died shave their whole body and also their head. The cats when they are dead are carried away to sacred buildings in the city of Bubastis, where after being embalmed they are buried.Herodotus, Histories II
Project Gutenberg
Once tamed, cats were carried to all corners of the Mediterranean, and new breeds began to appear, often strikingly different from their ancestors, e.g. Egyptian cats had significantly longer legs than their European descendants.
The goddess Bastet was represented as a cat, not a lazy, cuddly pet but a wild hunter. Because of this divine connection cats were often mummified. Large numbers of cats were killed at Saqqara and used as votive offerings to Bastet. Archaeologist have found that a large percentage of these mummies (about 4 out of 10) were fakes, containing little or no cat remains [1]. Similar practices in the falcon mummy trade were uncovered in antiquity.The lynx
The lynx was one of the smaller wild cats living in Egypt. The Desert lynx, or caracal, lives mostly beyond the narrow strip of fertile Nile plain. Its colour is brownish and it preys on birds and small mammals.
New Kingdom sketch of a lynx
Louvre Museum
Source: Jon Bodsworth
O Apep, thou enemy of Ra. Get thee back, Fiend, before the darts of his beams! Ra hath overthrown thy words, the gods have turned thy face backwards, the Lynx hath torn open thy breast, the Scorpion hath cast fetters upon thee, and Maat hath sent forth thy destruction.But it was also a danger to the deceased in his journey through the underworld, who needed charms to ward off the Lynx, as well as the Great Crocodile Sui, the Serpents Rerek and Seksek, the Beetle A-pshait, the terrible Merti snake-goddesses, and Apep.E. A. Wallis Budge Egyptian Magic, Chap. 3, p.79
[1] C. Callou, R. Lichtenberg and A. Zivie, "The cat mummies discovered in the Bubasteion of Saqqarah, Egypt", Poznan Symposium, 2003
