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Virtual Pole Zi Press: Although there are also staggered and drunken dancing songs, the feast of bliss in the Tang Dynasty is still missing an important link than the feast of the cat gods in ancient Egypt...
Cats and dogs are different, and cats have a more independent personality. It is precisely because of this difference that people have different feelings for cats and dogs, and people often have a sense of attachment to dogs, but there is also a sense of reverence for cats in addition to love. Therefore, many civilizations in ancient and modern China and abroad have different degrees of worship or fear of cats.
The biological classification of cats is: mammals - carnivorous order - split-foot suborder - cat type family - cat family - cat subfamily - cat genus - spotted cat. Spotted cats, also known as bobcats or feral cats, are widely distributed in Europe, Asia and Africa. The results given by genetic testing prove that domestic cats are all evolved from spotted cats, but it is not excluded that there are genes mixed with other cat subfamilies.
The above two photos are Bengal leopard cats, the image is relatively close to the spotted cat, in fact, it is artificially hybridized with the Egyptian cat and the ocelot cat in the domestic cat, and there is a newly joined ocelot in the Guanfu Museum.
▲ Guan Fu cat Buneng Leopard
Judging from the general cold habits of domestic cats, their ancestors should come from warm areas, such as African wild cats and Asian leopard cats may be the direct ancestors of domestic cats.
Genetics and archaeology show that the history of human domestication of cats can be traced back to the two river basins of Western Asia and ancient Egypt 10,000 years ago. Cat bones buried with humans 9,500 years ago have been found in Cyprus, and eight bones of two cats dating back 5,300 years have also been found in Quanhu Village (Yangshao culture) in Shaanxi, China. These civilized areas are all places where agriculture occurred relatively early. With agriculture, there is a surplus of grain, and with surplus grain there will be rat infestation, so agricultural peoples have produced the need to raise cats and exterminate rats. In ancient Egypt in 3000 BC, people worshiped cats as gods and worshipped them, and anyone who killed cats was sentenced to death. Egyptians with status were also buried with a mummy of a cat after they died.
▲ Two mummies of ancient Egyptian cats
Collection of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada
The ancient Egyptians believed that the cat's eye was the eye of the sun god "Pull", or "Eye of Horus", which could illuminate the darkness of the netherworld and guide the souls of the deceased to light and eternal life.
▲ The bronze cat deity wears the "Eye of Horus" on its neck, which is the right eye of Horus, symbolizing the perfect sun, which can make people overcome evil spirits and stay away from suffering
Collection of the British Museum, London, UK
▲ Eye of Horus
In ancient Egyptian mythology, the cat god was named Bastet (also known as Baast, Ubaste or Bast), and his priesthood gradually transformed from the earlier god of war to the patron saint of the family, and during the Greek rule, it was further transformed into the moon god. But no matter how it changes, Buster always shows herself as a feminine goddess with a cat's head.
▲ Ancient Egyptian cat goddess "Buster"
When the Bast cat god transformed into an ancient Egyptian noblewoman, he often wore a "cheongsam", carried a handbag on his arm, and held a fork bell (the fork bell in the picture below is made a bit like a cricket bat, which seems to contain a subtext: The little milk dogs must obey Oh, otherwise a stick will go down... ）。
▲ Buster deity transformed into a woman (Late Ancient Egypt: 664-332 BC), bronze
The Bast Festival, held in the city of Bubatis, was one of the most important festivals in ancient Egypt, and Bubastis, located on the delta of the lower Nile, was the center of worship for the gods of Bast. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus had a detailed description of the "Great Bastion Festival": during the annual festival, coinciding with the flooding of the Nile river in June and July, the only boat in the vicissitudes of the sea can be through Bubatis; more than 700,000 adult men and women are in the middle of the stream, and everyone in the boat is singing and singing, including many obscene songs and the voice of Zheng Wei; after entering the city, people laugh and ridicule each other, and the jokes made by women are particularly explicit; in song and dance, wine is indispensable. The Great Bastion Festival serves mainly beer and wine (red pomegranate juice, one says), and people shout loudly as soon as they enter the city: "Where is the beer?" My throat was as dry as straw! Therefore, the Great Bastion Festival was also called the "Drunken Festival" by the Egyptians.
▲ Gayle-Anderson cat is based on Bast (Late Egypt: 664-332 BC), bronze with gold ornaments
During the festival, in addition to singing and dancing and drinking and sacrificing sacrifices, people also have wild sex, make love, group sex... Such a kidney-testing festival has both the color of sympathetic sorcery — praying for a good harvest for the earth in the coming year through sexual intercourse , and also reflecting the fertility concept pursued by the ancient Egyptians — and the infinite number of children and grandchildren.
▲ Baster deity of the cat's head, bronze, contemporary replica
This kind of festival, which is aimed at breeding the population, is also ancient in China. In the "Zhou Li, DiGuan, and Media Clan", it is clearly stipulated in the form of a government decree: "In the middle of the spring month, the men and women of the order will be met, so when the time is also, the runners cannot help it." If there is no reason, it is not necessary to punish it without ordering it". This means that the government must not interfere with marriages that were not ordered by the parents in the middle of February. In short, it is exactly the same sentence: have more sex, have offspring!
▲ Buster cat deity, bronze with enamel ornament, 42 x 13 cm
Collection of ancient Egyptian sculptures in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France
But agrarian peoples who value many children and many blessings often also like to emphasize hierarchy and identity. Since a large number of fatherless sons will be born after the Great Bastion Festival, many European languages still call "bastards and bastards" "Bastard", and the origin of the word is "Bastet".
Regardless of what bastard bastards he gave birth to during the Cat God Festival, the good villains are also the products of people. The mysterious cat star went to the east of the demon (mēn) ye (sāo), and immediately opened the mode of deep interaction between the human cat...
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