In 2001, archaeologists working on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus found something unexpected.

Tucked away in a gravesite that contained a human skeleton, primitive jewelry and other

funerary artifacts was something else. A cat. Of course, cats are never unexpected when

it comes to history. Most people are aware of just how important cats were to the ancient

Egyptians, placing them firmly in the realm of the Deep Past, from the feline goddess Bestet

to the seemingly endless discovery of mummified cats in places like Sikara. We know just how

important cats were to the Egyptians.

But the cat from Cyprus was certainly unexpected to the team who uncovered it because it predated

the oldest known Egyptian cat artwork by over 4,000 years, and it's also important to note

that cats aren't native to the island of Cyprus. They were brought there by humans.

And yes, we could go back and forth on whether or not this particular cat was buried as a

sacrifice or simply the act of someone taking their pet with them into the afterlife.

Regardless, finding one inside a human grave speaks to a certain level of personal connection

that is both surprising for its era and completely understandable to you and I today.

We love our pets. The animals we welcome into our lives have a way of becoming part of

our family. Some people dress them up like children, while others rely on their help

to overcome physical challenges. It's weird to think about, but in a lot of ways, our

pets make us more human, more complete. But not every animal companion has been viewed

as friendly, and if you dig through the past long enough, you're bound to uncover a surprising

fact. For one short chapter of human history, animals were seen as something more. Some,

it seems, were servants of the devil.

I'm Aaron Manke, and this is lore.

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