Its Reign Was Long, With Nine Lives to Start

‘Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt’ at the Brooklyn Museum

By HOLLAND COTTER
Published: July 25, 2013

(Photocredit: Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times)
At left, “Face of Sakhmet,’ from around 1390-1292 B.C.; right, “Recumbent Lion,” in limestone, from 305-30 B.C.

If your dream of heaven is eternity spent with the pets you love, “Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt” at the Brooklyn Museum is your exhibition. All of its 30 objects, sifted from the museum’s Egyptian collection, are of cats, big and little, feral and tame, celestial and not. Whether cast in bronze or carved in stone, their forms were to outlast time, and so they have.

Although it’s often assumed that the domestication of cats began in Egypt, archaeology suggests that Mesopotamia was the place. And despite the feline presence in religious contexts, Egyptians didn’t worship cats per se, but created gods that had their physical features, their expressive moods and their near-supernatural intelligence.

Ancient Egyptians took the supernatural seriously.

It was, for them, reality. The path between life on earth and life in an earthlike place beyond was continuous. The sun traveled it every day, moving across the sky from east to west, dropping from sight to continue its circuit through the netherworld, then turning up on earth again.

Ancient Egyptian artifacts uncovered in Sharqiya, North Sinai

A German archaeological mission has unearthed a granite statue of King Ramses II, one of the most significant figures of the pharaonic modern kingdom.

Ramses ruled Egypt between 1304 and 1237 BC.

Adel Hussein, director of the Antiquities Ministry's Lower Egypt sector, said in a statement on Monday that the 2.47-meter statue has been discovered at Tal Basta in Sharqiya. The piece shows Ramses II sitting between the goddess Bastit and the god Atum, the statement said. Deep inscriptions with the king's name are found on its back.

The goddess Bastit was represented in the form of a cat and was worshipped at Tal Basta, where the Ramses II statue was unearthed.

Atum, a pharaonic word for "perfect,” was believed by ancient Egyptians to have created himself. Mythology holds he later united with the god Ra, becoming Atum Ra.

An Egyptian mission also discovered the remains of a citadel’s gates and pillars at Tal Habwa in North Sinai that date back to Ramses II’s time, the statement said. The findings bear inscriptions of the king’s name and phrases such as “Atum’s beloved one” and the “protector of Egypt.”

Source: http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/ancient-egyptian-artifacts-uncovered-sharqiya-north-sinai