Evolution of the Domestic Cat

Today’s domestic cats have evolved from three or maybe four species of wild felidae.

The first domestic cats that we have physical proof or are that of the old Egypt, which mummified rests were found at Benin, Has an, Central Egypt, in 1889.

Origin of the Species
That of 1889 was an important discovery, literally, hundreds of thousands of mummified cats (maybe even millions, due that most of the bodies where grind and used as fertilizer).

To England they exported more than 19 tons of this fertilizer (equivalent to some 180,000 cats approximately) that was sold at an agricultural auction.

The Egyptian Cat
These rests are dated around the year 2,000 B.C., when the cult to cats was already consolidated.

The most common type of cat in Egypt was similar to the African wild cat (Felis Libyca), lightly tiger like, coming from the Mediterranean zone.

However, not all the mummified cats where Felis Libyca. There were also some examples of the Felis Chaus, the jungle cat with a ringed tail, also coming from the Middle East. If in the year of 2,000 B.C. the cat was already seen as a kind of cult, it must have lived in farms and cities of the old Egypt long before.

The ancient Egyptian civilization was based on the abundance of  cereals, with two or three harvests a year, that where cultivated on the fertile lands of the valley and on the delta of the Nile, with its animal flooding.

Near to the year 3,000 B.C. Egypt was a United Kingdom which period of splendor was about to begin. Wild cats were attracted to Egyptian farms by the abundance of rodents, and afterwards to the cities, where the cereals were stolen.

The cats with a fame of adaptability, must have turned into a permanent characteristic in the life of Egypt; later on the process of domestication would begin and, finally, that of deification.

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