Results: Cats History and Mythology
Published on 01/03/2015
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Cats were originally domesticated because they hunted mice that would eat stored grains. It was a beneficial situation for both species: cats got a reliable source of prey, and humans got effortless pest control. Let´s see which of these historical facts involving cats you already know:
The earliest ancestor of the modern cat lived about 30 million years ago. It was celled Proailurus, (“first cat” in Greek).
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Cats were favored pets during the Chinese Song Dynasty: long-haired cats catched rats, and the ones yellow-and-white fur were pets.
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In the 1750s, Europeans introduced cats into the Americas to control pests.
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None of the above
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CATS IN EGYPT:
When a family cat died in ancient Egypt, family members would mourn by shaving off their eyebrows. They held elaborate funerals too.
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The cat was embalmed with a sculpted wooden mask and the tiny mummy was placed in the family tomb or in a pet cemetery with tiny mummies of mice.
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Smuggling a cat out of ancient Egypt was punishable by death. Phoenician traders eventually succeeded in smuggling felines, which they sold to rich people in Athens and other important cities.
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Many Egyptians worshipped the goddess Bast, who had a woman’s body and a cat’s head.
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The Egyptian Mau is probably the oldest breed of cat. The breed is so ancient that its name is the Egyptian word for “cat.”
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None of the above
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CATS, RELIGIONS AND LEGENDS:
During the time of the Inquisition, Pope Innocent VIII condemned cats as evil and thousands of cats were burned. This led to an explosion of the rat population, exacerbating the Black Death.
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In Japan cats are thought to have the power to turn into super spirits when they die. The Buddhist think that the body of the cat is the temporary resting place of very spiritual people.
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Mohammed´s favorite cat, Muezza, was a tabby. Tabby cats have an “M” on top of their heads because Mohammad often touched them.
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A Hebrew legend says that Noah prayed to God for help protecting all the food he stored from being eaten by rats. In reply, God created a cat.
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None of the above
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WITCHES AND MYTHS RELATED TO CATS:
Spanish-Jewish folklore recounts that Adam’s first wife, Lilith, became a black vampire cat, sucking the blood from sleeping babies.
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While many parts of Europe and North America consider the black cat a sign of bad luck, in Britain and Australia, black cats are considered lucky.
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During the Middle Ages, cats were associated with withcraft, and on St. John’s Day, some Europeans would stuff them into sacks and toss the cats into bonfires.
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None of these
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