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In ancient Egypt, cats were represented in social and religious scenes dating as early as 1980 BC. [2] Several ancient Egyptian deities were depicted and sculptured with cat-like heads such as Mafdet, Bastet and Sekhmet, representing justice, fertility, and power, respectively. [3] The deity Mut was also depicted as a cat and in the company of ...
The women engaged in music, song, and dance on their way to the place. Great sacrifices were made and prodigious amounts of wine were drunk—more than was the case throughout the year. [22] This accords well with Egyptian sources that prescribe that lioness goddesses are to be appeased with the "feasts of drunkenness". [6]
The Obsequies of an Egyptian Cat, by John Reinhard Weguelin (1886). Ancient Egyptian religion was characterized by polytheism, the worship of multiple deities. [4] Prior to the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, there were a tremendous number of these deities, each patron of a different element of the natural world. [5]
Animal sacrifice was general among the ancient Near Eastern civilizations of Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia, as well as the Hebrews (covered below).Unlike the Greeks, who had worked out a justification for keeping the best edible parts of the sacrifice for the assembled humans to eat, in these cultures the whole animal was normally placed on the fire by the altar and burned, or ...
Cat mummies were used as votive offerings to the goddess, mostly during festivals and by pilgrims. [47] Hundreds of thousands of cat mummies were excavated at cat cemeteries in Bubastis, Saqqara, Speos Artemidos and Gizeh. [48] [49] [50] There was a lion god at Baalbek. The pre-Islamic Arabs worshipped the lion god Yaghuth.
The cat was the sacred and peculiar animal of Bast, who is represented with the head of a cat or a lioness and frequently accompanies the deity Ptah in monumental inscriptions. The tombs at Bubastis were accordingly the principal depository in Egypt of the mummies of the cat. [15] [16]
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Millions of mummified cats, birds, and other creatures were buried at temples honoring Egyptian deities. [80] [81] Worshippers paid the priests of a particular deity to obtain and mummify an animal associated with that deity, and the mummy was placed in a cemetery near the god's cult center.