Why did the ancient Egyptians worship cats?

The worship of animals is a long-standing cultural feature of the ancient Egyptians, especially cats. So why did the ancient Egyptians worship cats?

To the ancient Egyptians, cats had a mysterious appearance

Since ancient times, the ancient Egyptians had many mascots that were worshiped as their own religion. The spiritual life of the ancient Egyptians emphasized cats and only the Pharaohs had the right to keep them, ordinary people were not allowed to keep them. More importantly, any death of a cat caused by people is also a crime and punishable by death. That’s why people here respect cats, seeing them as a symbol of grace, grace and poise.

Bastet, cat-headed demigod with human body

Ancient Egyptian called Cat “Mau” and the Egyptians thought that this animal had the ability to help them solve problems such as rats, birds, and snakes destroying crops. Therefore, according to legend, the Egyptians were the first residents to domesticate wild cats into domestic cats. They began domesticating cats by placing food around the house to attract them to come. Just like that, over time, wild cat breeds were domesticated into domestic cats, closely related to human life.

Cat statues are easily found in Egypt

There is a painting of a man with a cat dated 6,000 years ago found in the Mostegedda burial site. This shows that cats played an important role in the spiritual life of the ancient Egyptians. Legend has it that the gods are often associated with images of animals such as falcons, beetles, dogs… and especially cats. This is the species that embodies the goddess Mafdet and the cat-headed, human-bodied goddess of sunset Bastet in Egyptian religion. According to belief, the two goddesses are worshiped to protect people from the venom of snakes and scorpions because cats can hunt and eat these species.

Ancient Egyptians worshiped cats

On each occasion of worshiping the goddess on the street, more than 700,000 worshipers kneel and worship cats to show their devotion. Therefore, a dead cat in any house represents misfortune, so everyone must perform the cat “mourning” ritual by shaving one eyebrow. Many large tombs in Egypt have mummies of cats in coffers made of precious stones. During the excavation of the Saqqara pyramid (south of Cairo, Egypt), scientists also discovered 3 out of 7 tombs were mummies of cats, more than 100 gilded wooden cat statues and a wooden statue of the cat god Bastet. copper. Pharaohs often mummified cats so they could continue to live in the afterlife, so up to now, millions of cat mummies have been found. The largest is the tomb with more than 180,000 cat mummies found during excavations by scientists.

Ancient Egyptian cat mummies were preserved over time

In ancient times, cats represented gods , so any sale or export to foreign countries was illegal and punishable by death. The ancient Egyptians worshiped cats so much that according to legend, during the war with Persia they failed miserably in their efforts to protect the “cat god”. The Persian army released thousands of cats into battle because they knew the Egyptians worshiped cats and the truth was that the Egyptian army had to surrender because they did not dare to hurt any cats.