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Meow – The History of Cat Domestication, and How Our Furry Friends Domesticated Themselves

Khalid Elhassan June 3, 2025 17 min

13. Sacred Cats

Statue of Bastet. Metropolitan Museum of Art

The domestication of cats in the Near East was a singular event, or one limited to a small geographic area. It thus differed from the more widespread and repeated domestication of dogs in various places at various times around the world. Cats were welcomed in many places, but in ancient Egypt, they were revered. By 2000 BCE, cats were common in Egyptian art, often shown in domestic settings.

The goddess Bastet, depicted as a lioness or as a woman with a cat’s head, became a prominent deity of home, fertility, and protection. Ancient Egyptian cats were sacred animals – symbols of protection, fertility, and divine power. Paradoxically, though, that reverence gave rise to a practice that probably disturbs modern sensibilities: the ritual sacrifice and mummification of cats. However, far from being acts of cruelty, such sacrifices were deeply rooted in religious devotion and complex spiritual beliefs.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.