68 i Flora Unveiled
Lewis- Williams, David (2004), Constructing a cosmos: Architecture, power and domestication
at Catal Hoyuk. Journal of Social Archaeology 4:28– 59.
- The reverence for cats in ancient Egypt reached its apogee during the Ptolemaic period,
when the cat came to manifest a plethora of apotropaic functions and to become identified
with a number of deities. For example, the male cat was identified as a manifestation of the sun
god Ra, and the sun god, in the guise of a tomcat, was believed to battle each night with the
“typhonic serpent of darkness.” The cat also came to represent the goddess Bast or Bastet whose
annual cult festival, at its height around 450 bce, was possibly the largest in Egypt. During
the Late Ptolemaic Period (664– 630 bce), cats were held sacred, and killing a cat in Egypt was
a considered capital offense (except for religious purposes). See Serpell, James A. (2014), The
domestication and history of the cat, in D. C. Turner and P. Bateson, eds., The Domestic Cat: The
Biology of Its Behavior, 3rd edition. Cambridge University Press, pp. 89– 92. - Vigne, J.- D., J. Guilaine, K. Debue, L. Haye, and P. Gérard (2004), Early taming of cats in
Cyprus. Science 304:259.
59. Ibid. - Guilaine, Jean (2001), Tête sculptée dans le Néolithique pré- céramique de Shillourokambos
(Parekklisha, Chypre). Paléorient 26:137– 142. - Mellaart, Çatal Hüyük.
- Mellaart, J. (1963), Excavations at Catal Hüyük, 1962: Second Preliminary Report
Anatolian Studies 13:24– 103, at 45. - Serpell (2014, pp. 87– 88) describes an often repeated process of interaction between wild
animals and people that may underlie the early stages of domestication: “In the Amazon region,
where hunting and gathering and subsistence horticulture is still practiced by a handful of sur-
viving Amerindian groups, hunters commonly capture young wild animals and take them home
where they are then adopted as pets, usually— although not invariably— by women. ... (t)hese
animals do not need to serve any functional or economic purpose to be valued by their owners.
Rather, they are viewed, cared for and indulged much like adopted children” (emphasis added). - Serpell (2014, p. 88) also points out what is probably a long and persistent association of
domestic cats with women in ancient Egypt, where, in tomb paintings “from about 1450 bce
onwards, images of cats in domestic settings become increasingly common in Theban tombs. ...
The cats are usually illustrated sitting, often tethered, under the chairs of the tomb- owners’ wives”
(emphasis added). - Hodder, The Leopard’s Tale.
- Hodder, Personal communication.
- Atalay and Hastorf, Food, meals, and daily activities; Hamilton, Naomi (1996), Figurines,
clay balls, small finds and burials, in I. Hodder, ed., On the Surface: Çatalhüyük 1993– 1995. British
Institute of Archaeology at Ankara/ McDonald Institute Monographs, Cambridge, p. 215– 263. - Hodder, The Leopard’s Tale, pp. 260– 261.
- Mellaart, J. (1970), Excavations at Hacilar. Edinburgh University Press; Mellaart, J. (1975)
The Neolithic of the Near East. Charles Scribner’s Sons.