The Relationship Between Cats & Humans – Where did it Begin, and Why?

It has been said that the cat was taken to Egypt from Persia about 2000 BC, or from Nubia. However, there is evidence against that. The cat we call “domestic cat” rather seems to have developed from wild species in Egypt and spread throughout the world from there.

It is generally believed that the cat was domesticated in Egypt, and the time is usually estimated to about 2000 BC. But there is evidence that a cat shared the tomb of a man in Mostagedda, in Upper Egypt, as early as 6000 years ago. This indicates that cats had a special status even then.

Why were cats domesticated? The usual answer is that cats chase rats. But this statement, along with the notion that cats take rats, is not entirely correct. Cats take mice, but hardly big rats that inhabit granaries. The fact is that dogs are better at catching rats. And unlike cats, they can be trained for a particular task.

Let us go a step further and ask whether the cat is truly domesticated!

I would argue that although humans have tried to domesticate many species, they only succeeded with a few of them. Dogs, horses, and a few others. Animals that can be trained to serve people, more or less as slaves. A dozen species at the most - and the cat is not among them.

In addition to that, a small number of species tolerate to live together with humans - not as servants, but on equal terms. Among those we find the cat. You can never control a cat, it does what it wants. If you want to be friends with it, it must be on equal terms. And cats are far too independent to be trained for a job. While there are data from ancient Egypt suggesting cats were used for hunting, I strongly doubt that it was “work for humans”.

It is likely that only social animals can be domesticated, because they subordinate themselves to a group or a leader. Solitary animals, which include all cats except the lion, do not submit to anyone.

If we assume that my reasoning is correct, which is not necessarily the case, the question is: Why was there a special relationship between humans and cats - almost a kind of symbiosis based on mutual consent?

The advantages for the cat are obvious. It can get protection from larger predators and have easier access to food (leftovers). To get protection for kittens may very well have been the cause for the cat to move into people's homes.

The benefits for humans are harder to see. Certainly the cat takes small rodents and possibly snakes. It may have been a sufficient reason to allow its presence, not at least if rodents spread disease and the snakes were poisonous. But is that enough or is there something else?

One aspect is that cats always and everywhere seem to have had magical, occult or religious significance. Cats have been considered to be in communication with higher powers, sometimes evil, and sometimes they have been considered to bring good luck or bad luck. Black cats are especially ominous.

In ancient Egypt the cat was sacred. To kill a cat, even by mistake, lead to death penalty. Was the cat sacred because it lived with people and was so beneficial to them, or did it come to live among humans because, for some reason, it was already sacred before that? It is the famous paradox of which was first, the chicken or the egg. We'll probably never know the answer. But the ancient Egyptians believed that a cat in the house gave happiness and luck. Cats wore jewels and were sometimes mummified after they died. The family they lived with shaved their eyebrows and mourned until their brows had grown back. I wonder if they really did all that for an animal that was kept merely for practical purposes.

Related Article: Black Cats - Heralds of Evil?

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