Most cat lovers are aware that the cat held a special, sacred place in the hearts of ancient Egyptians. Even their word for cat, Mau, proves by  its sound, how closely these people observed their feline companions. And most experts agree that the cat was first domesticated in Egypt.

However, there is some evidence to suggest that cats and man may have been sharing their homes for as long as eight thousand years. A feline jaw-bone was discovered in 1983 at a Neolithic settlement in southern Cyprus. Since Cyprus is an island with no wild, this animal must have been brought there specially.

Additionally, the bone proved to belong to the same species of cat later found in Egypt, a species with a larger head thant the cats we know today. So it seems likely that the Egyptians simply took to extremes a practice already in existence.

One of the earliest paintings of a cat dates from 2600 BC, and was found in an egyptian tomb of the Fifth Dynasty. This cat wears a collar, and, like all Egyptian cats, has tabby markings.

These cats led very comfortable lives. There are reports of Egyptians crumbling bread into bowls of milk for their pets, and carefully cutting up fresh fish for them to eat. They even tried to insure that females were mated with compatible males.

This passion for cats became a cult as time passed. There was a cat-headed goddess, Bast, who was linked with pleasure, fertility, music, and love. Cats appeared on magics amulets, bracelets, and were solemnly mummified when they died. In th nineteenth century archaeologists discovered more than 300.000 embalmed cast in a cemetery at Bubastis, site of the cat-cult’s main temple.

Indeed, the Egyptians venerated cats so deeply that they shaved their eyebrows as  a sign of mourning when one of their house cats died. If someone killed a cat, even accidentally, they were likely to be lynched by an angry crowd.

As this great civilization crumbled, the cat’s special place  inevitably diminished too.  Some Romans, admittedly, worshipped the cat - and a domestic cat was preserved for  posterity in the arms of a woman in the ruins of Pompeii. Certainly, by AD 79, cats were kept as a form of rodent control throughout the Roman Empire. During this period they became linked with the goddess Diana in her many guises as virgin huntress, fertility goddess , and goddess of the witches.