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Article: Cats of Cairo.(Review)
- Article from:
- The Middle East
- Article date:
- July 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 IC Publications Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Books have been written about cats since writing was invented. Cats exist in the hieroglyphs and drawings of ancient Egyptian tombs. Indeed, cats were revered as sacred animals in Pharaonic Egypt for a very practical reason: they killed the mice and rats who infested the granaries.
Centuries later after conversion to Islam, Egyptians still have a great affection for the cat which was domesticated in Egypt at the dawn of agriculture. Over millennia, they have coexisted with people who have lived along the Nile, particularly in Cairo. It was this interaction between felines and humans that caught the attention of cat lover Lorraine Chittock when she arrived in the ...