Читать книгу The Cat Handbook - Karen Leigh Davis - Страница 10

Unlike most wild animals, Felis lybica often chose to live near human settlements and hunt the vermin that would inevitably seek out and raid the food stores. As a result, the cat gradually accepted domestication as a reasonable trade-off for the privilege of staying close to an easy and stable food source. However, the cat was one of the last of our modern-day animals to be domesticated, lagging far behind the dog, which became man’s hunting companion some 16,000 years ago.

History generally credits the Egyptians with being among the first people to domesticate the cat approximately 3,500 to 5,000 years ago. Astute agriculturists, the Egyptians most certainly recognized the cat’s inestimable value in protecting their grain stores from rats and mice. One might imagine that the Egyptians began enticing these prowling wild felines to stay close to their settlements, perhaps by leaving scraps of food near their grain stores. As a result, taming or domestication of wild cats gradually took place. So valuable was their natural pest-control service that cats enjoyed an extended period of elevated status during this early era of human civilization. In fact, archaeological discoveries suggest that Egyptians worshipped cats as representatives of household gods. The Egyptian goddess, Bast, was often depicted as a woman with a cat’s head. So revered were these animals that symbolized their religious beliefs that Egyptians mourned the loss when a cat died, and even mummified the animal’s remains for entry into the afterlife. As one may guess, the penalty for killing a cat in those days was death.

Supporting the theory of Egyptian domestication and African origins is the fact that many of today’s domestic shorthaired cats remarkably resemble the stately Egyptian cats depicted in ancient paintings and sculptures. Likewise, some of their longhaired cousins, with their tufted ears and cheeks, retain the lynxlike look of their wild African ancestor, Felis lybica.