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When the Roman army conquered Egypt (in 30 BC), the soldiers were in awe of the monuments they saw – just like every previous visitor or conqueror. But there was another aspect of ancient Egyptian civilisation that captivated the legionaries: the Egyptian ginger cat. The Romans had never before seen such animals. Ginger cats were at that time only found in Egypt, with the exception of a few that were taken to Persia following the earlier Achaemenid conquest of Egypt (525 BC). A few went to nearby countries with whom the Egyptians traded.
Ancient armies welcomed cats because they killed the rats that would otherwise consume the grain and flour from which the soldier’s bread was made. Accordingly, the soldiers added these special cats to their ranks, taking the animals with them on leaving Egypt.
The cat in Egypt
Cats had been pets and guardians of the granaries in Egypt for over 2,000 years before the Romans arrived on the scene. They are among the earliest known animals to be domesticated, with tame cats known from the early Old Kingdom, when the two lands were first united. When brought into a home as kittens, they readily bond with the family and become affectionate pets, and, as they are inherently fastidious, they are quickly house-broken. This is a significant advantage over having dogs as pets. Feral cats, however, are notoriously difficult to domesticate, but, if undisturbed, they will instinctively protect the storage areas simply because these are good hunting grounds for them.
The cat became an early goddess in the Old Kingdom as Bast or Bastet. Her centre was in the Delta at Bubastis, where drunken festivals were held in her honour. The Greek historian Herodotus witnessed one such festival on his travels and provided a vivid description of debauchery.
The genetics of cat colouration
All cats, like humans, have two types of sex chromosome: the X chromosome found in male and female cats, and passed on by females to their offspring; and the Y chromosome, which is only found in male animals. An animal with two X chromosomes (XX) will be female, while an XY animal will be male. The names come from the shape of the structures, with the Y having a missing ‘leg’ compared to the X. The gene that determines colour for cats is located only on the X chromosome – there is no comparable gene on the Y chromosome.
Female cats can have either the ginger gene or a black gene in that location.
• If a female has both chromosomes with the same colour gene, then the cat will be that colour: two ginger genes XX for ginger; two black genes XX for black.
• If she has ginger on one of her X chromosomes and black on the other (XX), she will be a ‘calico cat’ – white with blocks of black and ginger. Only females can be calico cats.
• Since the male has only one X chromosome, which it inherits from its mother, he will be either ginger or black depending on which gene is passed on to him.
The migration of the ginger cat
Female cats tend to stay in one location. If they deliver a litter of kittens in a particular place, that will become their home. Male cats cannot resist the temptation to mate with any female in heat, no matter what their location might be. They impregnated the cats that lived in the communities the army was passing through or occupying. Since half their progeny would be females, they would carry the ginger colour gene with them on their X chromosomes. The result was that ginger cats were introduced into every site the Roman army went to throughout Europe.
In 1977, Dr Neil B Todd of the University of Pennsylvania published a study of the concentrations of different coloured cats in Europe. He found that ginger cats are indeed most heavily concentrated in the areas once occupied by the Romans, with the densest concentration in the world being in Alexandria.
Similar investigations showed how the Vikings spread their white cats to the countries they raided or invaded. In related fashion, polydactyl cats (with extra claws) originated in New England (USA) and were considered good luck by sailors, who introduced them to the ports they visited. Ginger cats did not come to the New World until the 17th century.
Over the past three centuries, beautiful ginger cats have gradually spread around the world. They were virtually unknown in the Orient until after World War II, and are still uncommon there. If you, like the author, share your home with a lovely cat of Egyptian ancestry, you can thank the centurions who recruited them to the Roman army!
W Benson Harer Jr is a retired obstetrician/gynaecologist. He was an Adjunct Professor of Egyptian Art at California State University San Bernardino. He has published and lectured extensively on ancient Egyptian medicine – and is, of course, a fan of ginger cats!
Further reading:
• N B Todd (1977) ‘Cats and commerce’, Scientific American 231: 100-108.
• D Anthony et al. (1984) Man and Animals: living, working, and changing together (UPenn Museum of Archaeology).
• L A Vocelle (2016) Revered and Reviled: a complete history of the domestic cat (Great Cat Publications).
