mistake. In an attempt to pacify his ferocious child, the elder deity plied her with red beer, a soporific substitute for the blood she craved. Satisfied at last, Sakhmet curled up and fell asleep, the angry lioness becoming a peaceful cat..
The ancient Egyptian held cats in the highest esteem, such that the penalty for killing or injuring a cat, even by mistake was death.
The status of cats rose from an ordinary rodent killer to a god to be worshiped. This was because cats killed snakes and rodents that attacked the King's palace. The earliest feline Egyptian goddess recorded was called "mafdet" and she is described as killing a snake with her claws.
The beginning of painting or drawing cats in Egypt started in 1950BCE someone painted a picture of an unusual creature on the back wall of a limestone tomb, some 250 kilometers south of Cairo, with it's long front legs, upright tail, and triangular Head staring down on an approaching field rat, the painting is unmistakably a cat.
The cats in Egypt were mummified, buried in large quantities, and held a very high rank in Egypt,
the Sakhmet bust ably captures the dual nature of cats, many of these other objects evoke more specific qualities. Lions sometimes, for example, served a symbolic function in the iconography of the nobility. A sculpture of one in repose—as seen in the “Cats and Kings” portion of the exhibit—might indicate that the king was secure in his rule and capable of holding chaos at bay. In another room, visitors will find the wooden coffin of princess Mayet, whose name translates, Catanzariti told me, to “Kitty.” Elsewhere, they’ll see a scarab issued by the Sakhmet-admiring Amenhotep III to commemorate one of his many lion hunts.
Then there’s the god Bes, who shows up in several of the artifacts on display. Though he’s typically shown as a squat, dwarf-like figure with muscular legs, Bes’ jovial features sometimes take on a more feline cast. Known as a protector of children, Bes was, Catanzariti says, “a god that didn’t have its own temple. It was found everywhere. In domestic contexts. In houses.” Bes was, in other words, not unlike a cat—wandering freely in and through the world, making a home wherever humans were. Here, he can be found on amulets, seen in the details on a “magic knife,” and more. Those objects sit side-by-side with many dedicated to other deities, including a striking “striding sphinx” with features that identify it as Tutu, the protective god of fortune and fate.
In some cases, recognizing the connection between a cat object and a particular divinity requires a trained eye—or, at least, knowledge of the object’s provenance. Sometimes, Catanzariti says, it’s a question of where the icon was found—say in a temple dedicated to Bastet. In other cases, subtle details such as the eye of Horus provide additional clues. But even those who don’t know what they’re looking for would do well to look closely. The smallest amulets are often highly detailed, revealing the astonishing level of realism that ancient artisans often brought their cats to work.The cats later spread from Africa to Europe, probably following migrating farmers
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