Vault of the Mau

Vault of the Mau

As cat fanciers, we are often derided in the modern for our endless affection for the feline race. Crafted by popular media, the average person possesses an image of cats being snooty, cold and unfeeling beasts, and develop a state of confusion when we express the love we have for our perfect pussies. This was not always the case as there was an ancient city from far off land of Egypt, down into the realms of time, where people from far and wide travelled great lengths to partake in the grand celebrations of the Felis catus. This wondrous place was Bubastis, which had been the site of great contributions towards antiquarian feline culture which even today is continually revolutionised in the modern day.

The seeds that would grow into the flower of Bubastis were cast long ago in the Near East, where African wildcats were domesticated. There are many theories surrounding the motives of this domestication, but the generally accepted explanation is that farmers had welcomed and encouraged the presence of cats on their land, finding that they protected the stores of harvest from mice and that the wildcats of Middle Eastern antiquity continued to visit and eventually stay, being unable to resist the offering of regular tasty mice amongst a landscape of sterile, punishing desert. As the skeletons between the Felis silvestris and the Felis catus are indistinguishable, it appears that the blessed land where this transformation occurred will be forever lost to history. However, this theory of mutual-benefit between man and feline is given life considering the independent nature of the feline, by which many zoologists consider to be a hint that cats had joined society on their own terms. The maintenance of this agricultural arrangement eventually led to the formation of a wildcat subspecies which we know as the domestic cat. Migrating farmers, infatuated by the novel behaviour of this new and charming beast, are then theorised to have brought the mouse-hunters to the new lands they encountered and thus propagated the creatures’ genetics. Their subsequent agricultural success and the preservation of the food storages from the help cats being the bane of rodents would have then led to feline popularity amongst the surrounding rural communities. This ancient story allowed the Felis catus to be forever penned within the pages of bestiary of earthly fauna.

This process would have happened long before Egyptian civilisation, who are famed for the society-wide feline fancying, but how and why did they come to worship the cat and their animal-human counterparts? Unlike the fading religions of our world today with their basis upon a collection of theological principles and commandments, the Egyptians believed that their surroundings were crafted with sparkles of the divine from an omnipotent cosmic power. Thus, these otherworldly connections they made of the animals around them eventually lead to zoolatry, animal veneration. The movement of time then warped and elaborated the original motives for their worship to create more nuanced symbolism and more complex representatives.

One of these representations was Bastet. Following heavenly fashion of the time, she possessed a feline head upon the form of a female warrior, a fitting uniform for her initial role as the feared guardian of the reigning Pharaoh and for the second job as protector of the dead. Her tenure as a valiant defender began just before the Old Kingdom of Egypt, 2575-2150BC and continued for several centuries. Growing tired of ethereal combat, Bastet undertook a change of career, with the lion goddess Sekmet filling in for her, allowing Bastet to retrain as a household nurturer of femininity and love, spending most of her time in the form of a domestic cat and starring in frequent depictions of her as a mothering cat comforting her brood of kittens.

The city of Bubastis was the place where Bastet then enjoyed the height of her popularity, supported by Herodotus, Historian of Ancient Greece, describing the temple of Bastet as being unequivocal in its beauty. Bastet’s temple has said to have housed enormous catteries with an endless array of mummified cats, being adorned in its entirety with feline status, flowers and seasonal offerings from the most loving admirers.

In the ornate cityscape of red granite columns and feline facades is the revelry that takes place upon the festival of Bastet. The length of the Nile is lined with boats of bundled papyrus and the sky filled with their painted sails all being carried on the current towards Northern Egypt where Bubastis lay, bright with colour, lit by candlelight with the music of the harp, lute and sistrum. Under the cover of night and the blessing of Bastet, throngs of one-hundred-thousand attendees sing, dance, feast upon candied dates and sip wine from flowered cups of gold and silver experiencing nothing but pleasure and enjoyment.

This mystical place obviously does not exist now, as the Journal of Matters Relating to Felines would be undertaking yet another campaign for the creation of a Bubastis ‘Year Abroad’ programme. Despite being a gem within ancient Egypt for both its beauty, cultural contribution and as a centre of trade and commerce, the city was only rediscovered with relative recency.

Spurred by the romance movement the glory detailed within legend and myth, it was popular for scholars to undertake multiple excursions to far off lands in search for the places contained within ancient stories. French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte himself and embarked on a trip to Egypt, with the purpose of Bubastis’ rediscovery with the accounts of Herodotus invoking the explorer within him.

The trip was a success, with his team using the geographical features of the land to calibrate the direction of their journey, leading them to a site of a windswept ruin. This site was announced as Bubastis and the substrate for subsequent archaeological excavations for the following two centuries, with the eventual uncovering of sparkling treasures and the ruins of the Temple of Bastet itself. These discoveries had therefore confirmed that the city had existed in all its wealth and splendour just as ancient accounts had foretold, so why was Bubastis found as a litter of broken granite in the 17th century? It was the victory of the Persian Achaemenid Empire over Ancient Egypt at the Battle of Palusian of the Eastern Nile Delta in 525BC.

The battle is the culmination of a royal tiff, were Amasis, Pharaoh of Egypt, had purposely delivered a different woman when the Persian leader, Cambyses, requested his daughters’ hand in marriage. Enraged and insulted, Cambyses prepared an army with the purpose of invasion. This army marched onto Egyptian territory during the high popularity of Bastet along with the heightened sacredness of cats being widespread. Readers of the Journal of Matters Relating to Felines will agree that we express the upmost praise and respect for cat-kind, but even we would agree that the Egyptians, under the charm of Bastet, had taken their devotion to an excessive level. For example, the punishment incurred from

Being aware of the Egyptians servile tendencies towards felines, Cambyses crafted a plan of psychological warfare. Dotted amongst the frontline of the Achaemenian soldiers were animals of all types and, upon their shields, feline faces and the beauty of Bastet. In order to not endanger the creatures created by the divine and to not damage the image of their goddess, the defending Egyptian army experienced severe paralysis of the mind and could not swing a sword of cast an arrow with reckless abandon, leading to their consequential defeat and the sack of Bubastis, the city being close to the battleground.

The story of Egypt and its feline culture does end here nor is it confined to the history books. There is a wealth of knowledge, treasure and artefacts still remaining within the sands. As recently as last year, there was an incredibly rediscovery of a sealed tomb, the finding of golden death masks and, within the very same necropolis, the unearthing of another team yielding tens of gilded feline statues of wood and bronze and countless mummified cats. This is no surprise, as if there was one were to inspect Victorian-era maps of the region, they would find dozens of archaeological sites of interest outlined, yet to be explored.

Throughout the previous paragraphs, we have explored the golden labyrinth of feline Egyptian heritage, with the basis and origins of their worship, the festivities occurring in the city of cat-lovers, Bubastis and its subsequent fall and rediscovery to the recent developments that the geography of Egypt contains for us feline fanciers today. The vault of the Egyptians sands concerning cat history is by no means exhausted

Composed by,

Maurice Alexander, Undergraduate of Business Management