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Cat's historic Some cat’s bones were found in Jericho by archaeologists in a human site from the Neolithic period and older than 9000 years. A cat’s skeleton dated 6000 years before J-C. has been dig up in Cyprus, but wild cats never lived on this island. Pictures of a woman playing with cats, dated 5000 years before J-C., were found in a Neolithic archaeological site in Ankara, Turkey. In Egypt, domestic cat naturally existed ; we can imagine that he was a wild animal in his native country, but this breed never existed without human people. He comes from the adaptation to the European wild cat came in Egypt during ice era. Only those who were adopted by humans stayed. They were kittens found when they lost their “nest”, as it usually arrived when kittens start to explore around. Thus, their descendants adapted themselves during 7000 years, between 9000 and 2000 before J-C., era when, “Naturally predisposed to be tamed, cats followed their preys, the rodents, which were attracted by humans houses situated in the Nile’s valley, by the agricultural development and so by the storage of the seeds” (Laurence Bobis, writer of “Cat / Story & Legends” Fayard). They were attracted by humans houses just because they smelt food and the heat of the night fire. Humans started to appreciate the company of these little felines who approached and played in the light of the fire. This happened in Antique Egypt, where the African wild cat (felis lybica) has been domesticated at least from 2000 years before J-C. These cats are depicted with details on a lot of Egyptian paintings. They had a brown red coat, stripped or spotted, with big ears and a graceful and slender body. The Egyptian sailors, at least from 1600 years before J-C., took cats on their boats to protect their food and their goods and started very early to give some kittens during commercial stops in The East and in Asia. In Europe, the first domestic cats arrived by the maritime way on the Phenician ships around 1600 years before J-C. The European owners of cats were only some rich citizens in Greece, Crete and Italy. The cat became an crowned animal in Egypt as from 1567 before J-C. and it was then stated to illegal to leave the country with one of them. The Egyptians saw in him an incarnation of the Bastet goddess. This goddess of the sun reigned on the fertility, the cure and the pleasures of the life : peace, music, dance, solidarity and love. When people wished to obtain a favour of the Bastet goddess, they brought the best fish in offering to its terrestrial representatives, the cats. With the death of a cat, its body was embalmed, then buried in tombs for cats. Thousands of these mummies were found. To kill a cat was a serious crime punished by death. But in 30 years before J-C., Egypt became a province of the Roman empire. The Roman soldiers returning to Italy in permission, took a cat to be offered to their family. The works of Italian art shows well that the Italians love much the cats. Mosaics, potteries, frescos and literature describe the cats like the companions of the family. In China, the cat was regarded as a pet since the dynasty of Han (1000 years before J-C.). Several fables wrote by Aesop (Esope) in Greece, relate to the cats. Aesop died into 546 before J-C. In Crete, approximately 500 years before J-C., a fresco appearing a cat was created in Hagia Triado, and numbers terra cottas in the shape of cats were found in many places of this island. In 500 before J-C. the cats became common in China. The accounts of the time show that they were considered and cherished in Asia where they protected the cocoons from silk. As a pet, the cat carried chance to its Master. There have been domestic cats in India for 200 years before J-C. Some cats were taken along in boat of India towards Ethiopia (then, much later, in 1868, some specimens of these cats, isolated in Ethiopia, were transported to England. In 1896, the "cats of Ethiopia" were recorded like a race: Abyssin). It is known as that the Jesus child had been calmed by a she-cat which lay down at its side. Her purring and her warm presence rocked the child who felt asleep quietly. In the small town of Pompey, buried in the year 79, one of the unearthed bodies is that of a woman holding the body of a cat in her arms. The cats went towards north while the Roman empire extended. The prints of legs of cats are visible on the Romans tiles in Silchester, in England. It is obvious that the cats of the Romans had fun to walk on the tiles in manufacture and that the Romans liked them as much as they did not hesitate to use the tiles thus "signed". Howell the Good, a king of Wales, at the first century, conceived laws to protect the cat in his country. The Mahomet prophet (570-632), founder of Islam, preferred to give up his coat rather than to awake the cat which slept above. The cats arrived on the island of Japan in the year 1000, gift of the Ichijo emperor of Korea, intended to protect the manuscripts. Then, in 1300, the emperor of China gave some cats to the Japanese emperor. The cats were then adopted and cherished by the nobility, then little by little, they became common in all the high society like carriers of happiness and good fortune. They were walked out of harness and leashes of silk, and did not leave by outside differently, so much they were estimated invaluable. Consanguinity was inevitable considering the small number of domestic cats being in each place. That generated genetic changes whose survivors had only one change concerning the colour or the length of the hairs, the colour of the eyes, the shape of the tail, the ears or the nose. Then the men selected and thus created local characteristics. Squinting or the eyes having a cast of some Siamese is a sad testimony of consanguinity encouraged by the men. In the same way, first Manx, cat with the dorsal deformations and without tail, appeared on the island of Man in 1600, following a spontaneous genetic change within the small local cat-like population. The first known polydactiles cats, had been born on a boat of emigrants arriving to Boston about 1605 coming from Cornwall. A very recent appearance of a new genetic change is the nudity of three kittens born in Ontario in 1978. A man reproduced deliberately this deformation by incestuous breeding. In Europe, the Middle Age (from 476 to 1453), saw the cats falling in discredit when the catholic church showed sorcery the practise of pagan rites. The cats of the martyr people were treated with the same cruelty of the thousands of women innocent were shown of sorcery, drowned or burned sharp with their cats. Why? Because the cats caused emotional balance and happiness, prowess whose church wanted the monopoly. The cat was practically eliminated in Europe at the 14th century. So the great epidemics of the plague could kill one the third of the human population of Europe. An edict of the ecclesiastical authorities, allowed the presence of the cats in the convents of nuns at the time of the epidemics of plague whereas they were proscribed there in normal time. In the memories of the poet Joachim du Bellay (death in 1560), is heartfelt cries of in love with the cats which has just lost his companion. The last epidemic of plague in London occurred in 1665 following the massive destruction of the free cats in this city. The people who survived are those which had as a practice to leave open bottoms of the doors to accommodate the cats and to protect them inside the houses. Hunting for the witches was officially abolished during the years 1790, city by city. Then, nothing any more prevented the in love ones with the cats from declaring their passion. The cat took again its statute of domestic companion and hunter of rodents. And since there was not any more an other epidemic of plague in Europe. The cat inspired the painters, Edouard Manet, Felix Valloton (1865-1925), George Stubbs, Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Amédée Daille (1896-1965), the sculptors, the writers like Colette (1873-1954), Champfleury, Mérimée, Rostand, Vian, Jean Cocteau, Steinlem, Victor Hugo, Gautier, Balthus, Leonor Fini and Baudelaire (born in 1821), and the musicians like Domenico Scarlatti (1865-1757) which composed “La Fugue du Chat”, or Maurice Ravel (1875-1937. From 1860, cats having certain particular characteristics according to their source (because of regional consanguinities), became "breeds": the Persian one come from Persia (Iran), Ankara from Ankara in Anatolia (Turkey) during the years 1630, the Turk of Van come from Armenia (Kurdistan), the Russian Blue of the port of Arkhangelsk. The Siamese one (of which the characteristic is to be clear except on the head, the tail and the legs) appeared 200 years before J-C. in Siam (Thailand) and was recorded like a breed in 1880 like Bobtail of the island of Japan and others. The blue cats come from the Syrian mountains during the crusades of the Middle Age, were appointed "Chartreux" by the Parisian during the 15th century because of their resemblance to a soft wool (of sheep or goat) imported of Spain under the name of "pile de Chartreux". This name their was officially given in 1928.In France, nowadays, a household on four has at least a cat, 10% of the owners live with three cats or more. In England, the cats, for a long time, returned to their statute of amulet. In the stories for children one always associates the black cats to Halloween and to the witches, but they are inoffensive characters, even benevolent. All the domestic cats (Felis lybica domestica), that they are cats with long or short hairs, with or without pedigree, which they live in a house or in the street, go down from this Egyptian origin. This small savage African feline has the same number and the same structure of chromosomes as all the domestic cats .
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