The origins and history of the Egyptian Mau

To trace the full history of spotted Egyptian cats we have to start in ancient Egypt around 4000 years BC when the first permanent settlements began to appear along the Nile and small cats of the genus Felis first began their close, and long-lasting association with man. It is probable that the first domestic cats (whose latin name is Felis sylvestris catus) evolved from small wild cats living in Egypt at that time. These wild cats would initially have been attracted to human settlements by the abundant quantities of rodents that would have infested the houses and grain silos of the ancient Egyptians. It has been estimated that a feral cat needs to kill approximately 1,100 small animals per year to survive, so it would clearly have benefited the Egyptians to encourage the presence of these cats. Cats would have also endeared themselves to the Egyptians by killing other dangerous vermin such as snakes and scorpions. It is therefore likely that the early association between cats and man started as a symbiotic relationship that was rapidly recognized and cultivated by the ancient Egyptians.

The most likely candidate for the ancestor of the domestic cat is a small wild cat similar to the modern day species known as the North African wild cat, Felis sylvestris libyca.

This small cat measures about 600mm from nose to tail tip, and is long legged and lightly built with large, non-tufted ears. The coat colour varies considerably from rufous brown to sandy fawn or even silvery grey, and the coat pattern is similar to a broken mackerel tabby with a darker spine line, ringed tail, black tail tip and broken striped markings on the body. In general appearance therefore, libyca is not dissimilar to modern-day domestic cats and specifically Egyptian Maus.
The domestication of libyca occurred sometime between 4000 and 2000 BC. The earliest evidence for an association between cats and humans in Egypt comes from a grave dated around 4000 BC. The grave contains the remains of a man, some tools, a gazelle and also a cat. The tools indicate that the man was probably a primitive craftsman, the gazelle may have been intended as food for the afterlife, and the cat at his may have been accompanying him as his pet. Unfortunately it is impossible to tell from the bones whether the cat was wild, tame or domesticated.

The oldest certain images of cats in ancient Egypt occur as hieroglyphs carved on a fragment of temple wall found to the south of Cairo and dated around 2200 BC. However, because the images are simple outlines and their context is unclear, they do not reveal much about the appearance of the cats or their state of domestication at that time. The first cats start to appear in Egyptian art from around 2000 BC, and give us a unique window onto the growing connection between cats and man. From 1900 BC the cats depicted in art are often in domestic contexts such as for example a bas relief from Coptos dating from about1950 BC that shows a cat sitting underneath a womans chair. Indeed, cats depicted sitting underneath the chairs of women are a recurrent theme in Egyptian Art, and may symbolize the fertility of the woman and the association of both the cat and the woman of the house with the goddess Hathor. By 1450 BC cats are commonplace in paintings of domestic scenes. Cats occur particularly frequently in the art of the New Kingdom (1570-1070 BC) and again in the Late Period (1070-332 BC). A second recurrent theme in Egyptian art is the depiction of cats pictured in the bird-filled marshes in the company of Egyptian hunters.

The cats are sometimes pictured with birds in their mouths, which has lead to the suggestion that the Egyptian may have used cats either to flush birds out of the marshes or possibly to retrieve the carcasses of the birds they killed. In most cases, the cats depicted in Egyptian art bear a strong resemblance to the modern Egyptian Mau. Like the modern Mau the Egyptian cats are of elegant build with large ears and eyes. These cats are also undoubtedly tabbies as evidenced by the spotted and striped markings depicted in many of the images.
One problem in trying to pinpoint when cats became domesticated comes from the fact that the ancient Egyptians did not have different words to distinguish between wild and domestic cats; all cats were referred to simply as ‘(s)he who mews. In demotic this was miu or mii and in the later coptic emu or amu.. The word ‘Mau’ is derived from one of these ancient languages, and simply means cat.
Cats assumed great importance in Egyptian religion from about 2000 BC onwards. From about 1500 BC it was believed that the sun god Ra could manifest himself in the form of a cat, the ‘Great Tomcat’. Each night Ra would journey to the underworld, confront his enemy the snake demon Apophis, kill the snake with a knife and thus ensure the return of the sun the following morning. Many ancient Egyptian paintings depict Ra in the form of a spotted cat slaying Apophis. By 945 BC the cat had become associated with another goddess, Bastet, and sacred cats kept and bred in temple catteries were worshipped as living manifestations of the goddess. The popularity of this cult of Bastet continued for over 1500 years into the Roman era (to 330 AD). Many beautiful bronze sculptures of cats survive from this period, and with their long elegant limbs, high shoulder blades and level brows they are strikingly similar to modern Maus.

When a cat died in a private house the inhabitants of the house would mark its death by shaving their eyebrows. Dead cats were taken to the capital city of Bubastis where they were embalmed, mummified and buried in sacred repositories, in the hope that they would accompany their owners into the afterlife. Just as with human mummies, the wrappings of the cats were often painted with their features and other elaborate designs. Some cats were even given limestone sarcophagi or wooden cat-shaped coffins, and a few had life-like bronze face masks.  Cat mummies date from around 1000 BC, and have provided much important information about the ancient Egyptians’ cats. Of the mummies that have been unwrapped, several have revealed the spotted tabby pattern characteristic of modern Egyptian Maus. There is therefore abundant evidence that elegant, spotted tabby domestic cats were common in ancient Egypt.

There seems little doubt that the Romans were responsible for taking spotted cats from Egypt to Italy and possibly other parts of Europe probably in the early centuries AD. Spotted cats closely resembling Maus in both markings and body type are clearly depicted in a number of Roman mosaics including one found at Pompeii. Domestic cats of Egyptian origin probably interbred with the stockier, longer-coated European wildcats (Felis sylvestris sylvestris) and thus gave rise to the Northern European domestic cats we know today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The domestic cats of modern Egypt seem to have retained many of the characteristics of their ancestors, and bear a close resemblance to the cats depicted in ancient Egyptian art. In a recent photographic portrait of the ‘Cats of Cairo’, photographer Lorraine Chittock depicts the modern Egyptian cats as having elegant body type, modified wedge-shaped heads and large ears. Although, the cats come in a range of colours not permitted in modern Maus including red and white, there are many tabbies represented, and these are predominantly of the spotted tabby pattern characteristic of both the ancient Egyptian cats and the modern Egyptian Mau. The brown tabbies pictured tend to be of a warm brown hue more reminiscent of the bronze Mau than of the darker, cooler-coloured brown tabbies of Northern Europe.
It is difficult to find much information concerning the breeding of pedigree Egyptian cats in Europe before World War II, however, Egyptian-type cats were certainly bred in France, Italy and Switzerland in the first half of the 20th century, presumably from cats imported from Egypt and the Middle East such as those recorded by Lorraine Chittock. Marcel Reney in Nos Amis Les Chats published in France in 1940 gives a clear description of the Egyptian foreign short-hair as a tall, slim cat with a modified long head and resilient coat. The standard for the pattern describes a spotted tabby with numerous spots. Spots were to be round or oblong, clearly outlined, and must not form lines. This description is very similar to that of the Egyptian Maus we know today.
During World War II the majority of cat breeds declined in Europe with the Egyptian Mau facing near extinction. We owe the survival of the modern Egyptian Mau to Nathalie Troubetskoy, an exiled Russian Princess whose story adds another romantic dimension to the history of the breed.