Welcome to Diane's Cat Blog: Let's Find Out More About Cats... (First, a little history)

     As The New York Times wrote in 2007, "Until recently the cat was commonly believed to have been domesticated in ancient Egypt, where it was a cult animal", a later study in 2007 showed that the historical generation of all house cats is likely to run through as few as five self-domesticating African Wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica) c. 8000 BC, in the Near East.
     Cats are thought to have self domesticated as they learned to live in close proximity to humans. The arrangement was beneficial to both. Cats seeking food and comfort, humans glad for the hunting skills of cats that kept the mouse population in check.
The earliest direct evidence of cat domestication is a kitten that was buried alongside a human 9,500 years ago in Cyprus.
     The major example of cats being kept as pets was in ancient Egypt when, approximately 3,500 years ago (1,500 BCE), a local cult of worshipping a cat goddess (Bastet) became widespread. Cats were highly valued and often mummified when they died. Herodotus noted the Egyptian fondness for cats when he visited in 450 BCE. The Egyptians attempted to restrict the distribution of cats to other countries and prohibited their export.
     The Romans are thought to have introduced cats to central and western Europe, including Britain. Cats are thought to have reached India approximately 2,200 years ago (200 BCE) and to have reached China and Japan even later. As trade by shipping became common, cats became essential items on ships to keep the mice, and later rats, under control, and in this manner cats became geographically disseminated. References to cats as companions or pets are rare, and “up until the tenth century the cat is viewed, if not with respect, then with tolerance and as a necessity and asset to the household” (Lynnlee JL, Purrrfection: The Cat, West Chester, Pa., Schiffer, 1990, p. 21)•
Modern History
     As the 11th century began, tolerance for cats began to grow less in Europe for religious reasons, and “by the 13th century the church viewed witches as real and cats as instruments of the devil” (Lynnlee, p. 20). Dante (1265–1321), for example, mentioned cats only once in his work and compared them to demons. From the 14th century well into the 18th century, cats were regularly killed on specific religious holidays. “By the late 15th century the persecution of cats and witches was a mainstay of European society. . . . The 15th and 16th centuries are almost devoid of any cat literature and art. . . . During this period the cat still was used to control rodents, but it was rarely seen as a pet, for if so its existence and that of its owner were in jeopardy” (Lynnlee, p. 21). Cats became especially associated with heretical religious sects, such as the Waldensians and Manichaeans, and members of these sects were accused of worshiping the Devil in the form of a black cat.

On feast days all over Europe, as a symbolic means of driving out the Devil, they were captured and tortured, tossed onto bonfires, set alight and chased through the streets, impaled on spits and roasted alive, burned at the stake, plunged into boiling water,whipped to death, and hurled from the tops of tall buildings, all in an atmosphere of extreme festive merriment. (Serpell JA, The domestication and history of the cat, in Turner DC and Bateson P, eds., The Domestic Cat, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 156).