Evidence for early cat taming in Egypt

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2007.02.019Get rights and content

Abstract

The remains are described of a young small felid found in a Predynastic burial at Hierakonpolis, Upper Egypt. Osteometric and zoogeographical arguments indicate that the specimen, dated to around 3700 B.C. on the basis of the associated pottery, belongs to Felis silvestris. In the same cemetery several other animal species, both wild and domestic, have been found. The left humerus and right femur of the cat show healed fractures indicating that the animal had been held in captivity for at least 4–6 weeks prior to its burial. We believe that this pathology suggests early cat taming more convincingly than a buried cat recently reported from Neolithic Cyprus (7500 B.C.). Such taming events were probably part of the processes that eventually led to the domestication of Felis silvestris. However, the absence of the cat in Predynastic and Early Dynastic depictions and its rare attestation in the archaeozoological record indicates that domestic status had not yet been attained during those early periods. Other species that were also held in captivity by Ancient Egyptians probably never became domesticated because they had one or more characteristics that prevented it.

Section snippets

Domestication of the cat

The wild ancestor of our domestic cat is Felis silvestris, and more precisely its Levantino-African subspecies, F. s. lybica (Robinson, 1984, Randi and Ragni, 1991) (Fig. 1). The exact place and date of its domestication remain undocumented, but domestic status seems to have been reached by the Middle Kingdom (c. 2040–1782 B.C., all data on the chronology of Ancient Egypt from Murnane, 1983) in Egypt, at the latest during the 12th dynasty (c. 1976–1793 B.C.), when the animal begins to appear

A small felid from the elite cemetery at Hierakonpolis

Hierakonpolis is located between the towns of Esna and Edfu in Upper Egypt (Fig. 2), and is the largest Pre- and Protodynastic site known to date, occupied from at least 4000 B.C. onwards. Its very rich and diverse remains include cemeteries, domestic areas, industrial zones and ceremonial centres. Despite considerable disturbance and plundering in both recent and ancient times, the so-called elite cemetery (HK6) is one of the areas that have yielded unique and most interesting results.

Identification and description of the small felid

Fig. 3 shows the skeletal remains recovered from the small felid in Tomb 12, of which an inventory is given in Table 1. The animal could theoretically belong to one of three wild cat species occurring in Egypt today. The largest of the three is the swamp cat (Felis chaus) while the other two, wild cat (Felis silvestris) and sand cat (Felis margarita), are considerably smaller. These species can be distinguished using the morphology and osteometry of their skulls (Hutterer, 1990, Mattern and

Discussion

While wild cat remains from settlement contexts merely prove that the species was hunted, the buried individual from HK6 indicates that during Predynastic times it was also caught to be kept in captivity. The severity of the cat's injuries suggests that they were not caused by an accident during its life in the wild, but that they were the result of human actions during the capture of the animal, or perhaps during the period of captivity. The bone fractures of the HK6 animal probably healed

Acknowledgements

This study was only possible thanks to work at Hierakonpolis by Renée Friedman (British Museum) and the late Barbara Adams. Our gratitude goes out to them in the first instance. Renée Friedman also provided very useful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. Sincere thanks are also due to Achilles Gautier (Ghent University) for his advice and for lending us all the cat publications from his library. Hélène Jousse was kind enough to measure recent felid skeletons housed at the Institut

References (93)

  • B. Adams

    Excavations in the elite Predynastic cemetery at Hierakonpolis locality HK6: 1999–2000

    Annales du Service des Antiquités de l'Egypte

    (2004)
  • B. Adams et al.

    The Koptos Lions. The Milwaukee Public Museum

    Contributions in Anthropology and History 3

    (1984)
  • T. Amorosi

    A Postcranial Guide to Domestic Neo-natal and Juvenile Mammals—The Identification and Ageing of Old World Species

    (1989)
  • H. Asselberghs

    Chaos en Beheersing: Documenten uit Aeneolithisch Egypte

    (1962)
  • J.A. Baldwin

    Notes and speculations on the domestication of the cat in Egypt

    Anthropos

    (1975)
  • A. Beja-Pereira et al.

    African origins of the domestic donkey

    Science

    (2004)
  • N. Benecke

    Der Mensch und seine Haustiere—Die Geschichte einer jahrtausendealten Beziehung

    (1994)
  • L. Bodson

    Les débuts en Europe du chat domestique

    Ethnozootechnie

    (1987)
  • J. Boessneck

    Die Tierwelt des Alten Ägypten

    (1988)
  • J. Boessneck et al.

    Die Tierknochenfunde

  • Boessneck, J., von den Driesch, A., 1992. Tell el Dab’a VII. Tiere und historische Umwelt im Nordost-Delta im 2....
  • J. Boessneck et al.

    Die Tierreste von Maadi und Wadi Digla

  • C.R. Boettger

    Die Haustiere Afrikas—Ihre Herkunft, Bedeutung und Aussichten bei der weiteren wirtschaftlichen Erschliessung des Kontinents

    (1958)
  • S. Bökönyi

    History of Domestic Mammals in Central and Eastern Europe

    (1974)
  • B. Brentjes

    Die Haustierwerdung im Orient

    (1965)
  • G. Brunton

    Mostagedda and the Tasian Culture

    (1937)
  • Brunton, G., Caton-Thompson, G., 1928. The Badarian Civilisation and Predynastic Remains near Badari. British School of...
  • C. Cameron-Beaumont et al.

    Evidence suggesting preadaptation to domestication throughout the small Felidae

    Biological Society of the Linnean Society

    (2002)
  • K.M. Cialowicz

    La composition, le sens et la symbolique des scènes zoomorphes prédynastiques en relief—Les manches de couteaux

  • K.M. Cialowicz

    Le manche de couteau de Gebel el-Arak—Le pro-blème de l'interprétation de l'art prédynastique

    Essays in Honour of Prof. Dr. Jadwiga Lipinska. Warsaw Egyptological Studies I

    (1997)
  • J. Clutton-Brock

    The spread of domestic animals in Africa

  • B. De Cupere

    Animals at Ancient Sagalassos

    (2001)
  • J. Diamond

    Evolution, consequences and future of plant and animal domestication

    Nature

    (2002)
  • A. von den Driesch

    A guide to the measurement of animal bones from archaeological sites

    (1976)
  • R.D. Estes

    The Behavior Guide to African Mammals

    (1991)
  • Figueiredo, Á., 2004. Locality HK6 at Hierakonpolis: Results of the 2000 field season. In: Hendrickx, S., Friedman, R.,...
  • Flores, D.V., 2003. Funerary Sacrifice of Animals in the Egyptian Predynastic Period. BAR International Series 1153,...
  • D.V. Flores

    Funerary sacrifice of animals in the Egyptian Predynastic period

  • R. Friedman

    Elephants at Hierakonpolis

  • Friedman, R., in press. Excavating Egypt's early kings: recent discoveries in the elite cemetery at Hierakonpolis. In:...
  • A. Gautier

    La Domestication: et l'Homme Créa ses Animaux

    (1990)
  • A. Gautier

    Fauna, domesticated

  • A. Gautier

    Animal remains and mummies from the necropolis of Elkab (Upper Egypt)

    Archaeofauna

    (2005)
  • S.M. Goodman et al.

    The sand cat Felis margarita Loche, 1858 in Egypt

    Mammalia

    (1986)
  • C.A.W. Guggisberg

    Wild Cats of the World

    (1975)
  • K.-H. Habermehl

    Die Altersbestimmung bei Versuchtieren

    (1980)

    • Cited by (0)

    View full text
    Copyright © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.