ancient Egypt – Michael Broad

Infographic on 19.5 tons of Egyptian mummified cats imported into England 1890

September 22, 2024 by Michael Broad

The BBC video on the BBC website about the shipping of 19.5 tons of mummified cats (180,000 mummies) from Egypt to Liverpool, England in 1890 is excellent but for one omission. It does not refer to a very important part of the story; how so many mummified cats came into existence. Where exactly did …

180,000 cat mummies ground into fertilizer in UK

June 5, 2024 by Michael Broad

This is a fascinating – and slightly horrifying – story from the 19th century. 🙀 Here’s the story: in the 1800s, there was a booming trade in mummies and mummy parts. Egyptians mummified a lot of animals, especially cats, which were sacred creatures in their culture. Victorians, however, didn’t see these mummies as cultural …

Picture of a domestic cat outside an Egyptian temple

June 5, 2024 by Michael Broad

Picture of an Egyptian domestic cat outside a temple in which the cat looks like an ancient Egyptian statue

This is a lovely photograph as the cat looks like an ancient Egyptian statue. All the ancient Egyptian statues depict elegant, rather slender, shorthaired cats. They remind me of today’s Abyssinian cat and there may be a connection there but there is no evidence. This cat has a grey coat and steely, golden eyes …

The discovery that disproved that the Ancient Egyptians were the first to domesticate the wild cat

September 5, 2023 by Michael Broad

Credits:

The picture is deemed to be in the public domain
The words at the base of the image are from The Taming of the Cat published on the PMC Pub Med Central website.
Citation: Driscoll CA, Clutton-Brock J, Kitchener AC, O’Brien SJ. The Taming of the cat. Genetic and archaeological findings hint that wildcats became housecats earlier–and in a different place–than previously thought. Sci Am. 2009 Jun;300(6):68-75. PMID: 19485091; PMCID: PMC5790555.
Link to study.

P.S. I have one comment. It is possible that the cat in the image was tame and not truly domesticated whereas the Ancient Egyptians domesticated the cat.

How did the cat become associated with witchcraft?

March 28, 2023 by Michael Broad

The compact infographic below summarises how the humble and innocent cat became so unfairly associated with witchcraft. Once again, I rely on the best man or women on the matter of cat history and behavior: Dr Desmond Morris. Such clean writing and clarity of thought. He says that religious bigots, in this case Christians, …

All of today’s 600m domestic cats descend from 5 female matriarchal wildcats

March 7, 2023 by Michael Broad

In the image below I have tried to present a feel for what the Fertile Crescent was like around 10,000 years ago when ‘at least five different females from the wildcat population’ befriended farmers and founded one of the greatest populations of domestic animal companions the world has seen: the domestic cat. Of course, …

Infographic on “What kind of cat did Cleopatra have?”

February 23, 2023 by Michael Broad

The infographic answers the question as best I can. It is not clear when the multitude of different domestic cat coats first emerged through natural selection (evolution) except for the classic (blotched) tabby which emerged in the 18th century. But as the domestic cat is a domesticated North Eastern wildcat which is a rather …

Why did ancient Egyptians shave off their eyebrows to mourn their dead cats?

April 25, 2021April 25, 2021 by Michael Broad

Twitter recreation of shaving eyebrows to mourn the passing of a cat

Answer: shaving the eyebrows to mourn the passing of their cat, is a clear signal to others. Some background information on the relationship between ancient Egyptians and animals helps, I think, to understand the practice of shaving eyebrows on the death of a cat at that time. The quote comes from Herodotus, an ancient …

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