The Pharaoh's Cat: A Royal Companion by the Nile

In the fifteenth century BCE, Pharaoh Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty was an avid cat lover. His most cherished cat, a spotted shorthair named Tedy, was described by the pharaoh himself as 'the eye that walked with me across the desert' after his Syrian campaign. In a tomb painting at Thebes, Tedy sits beneath the royal chair, with the queen beside it, both of their sleeves touching the cat. Archaeologists have also found that Egyptian cats wore golden collars and were buried alongside their owners. More than two hundred mummified cats from the New Kingdom period have been found as 'burial companions' — in life they accompanied the pharaoh, and in death they did as well. The Egyptians believed cats could guide the human soul through twelve gates of night.