History and Myths of the Cat in Ancient Civilizations - Couverture souple

Presta, Egidio M. B.

Couverture souple

ISBN 13 : 9798173250988

Editeur : Independently published, 2026

Synopsis

If you observe a domestic cat while it sleeps curled up on a chair or while it stares at an invisible point in the empty room, you will be seized by a subtle yet unmistakable sensation: that small animal does not entirely belong to our world. In its eyes of shadow or emerald, there is no trace of the dog's devoted submission, nor of the passive usefulness of livestock. There is, instead, an ancient independence, an aura of intact royalty that time and coexistence with man have never managed to scratch. For millennia we deluded ourselves into thinking we had mastered nature, into having bent wild species to our will, domesticating them to make them work tools, sources of sustenance, or guardians of the house. The cat, however, represents the most fascinating and mysterious exception in all of anthropological history, being in fact the only animal to have domesticated itself. It all began about ten thousand years ago in the fertile lands of the Near East, when human beings took the most revolutionary step of their existence, abandoning nomadism to transform into farmers. With the birth of agriculture and the consequent creation of the first large grain deposits, the life of the early urban communities experienced unprecedented prosperity, but inevitably attracted a devastating plague, made of swarms of rodents ready to destroy food reserves. From the surrounding steppes and deserts then arrived a small solitary hunter, the African wildcat. It was not man who captured it or bent it by force; it was the feline that sensed an opportunity, approaching settlements to access an unprecedented concentration of prey. Humans quickly understood that that silent predator was the most effective defense for their own survival, giving life to a silent and unwritten pact, an alliance of mutual convenience based on respect and mutual distance. As the first tribes of farmers transformed into vast empires, the figure of the cat underwent an extraordinary and profound evolution. No other animal has ever traversed the spectrum of human emotions and beliefs with such dramatic effect. Along the Nile Valley, the granary hunter was quickly elevated to the rank of incarnate deity and protector of the home, representing the dual nature of the fierce war lioness and the gentle goddess of fertility. In the refined imperial courts of China and Japan, it became an inestimable luxury good, guardian of precious silkworms and sacred manuscripts preserved in monasteries. On the ships of merchants and northern warriors, it crossed the seas as a travel companion and bearer of good fortune, while in pre-Columbian Americas, where the domestic cat was still unknown, great civilizations projected the same reverential fear towards its larger cousins, the jaguar and the puma, seen as the sovereigns of the night and the underworld. The cat has walked the corridors of power, has rested on cuneiform tablets and religious papyri, has crossed oceans in the holds of great navigators, and has even paid with its life for the darkest obsessions of the European Middle Ages, proving how much the fate of a civilization can often be measured by the way it chooses to treat its felines. This journey stems from the desire to tell the history of humanity through a different perspective, namely that of the cat's vertical pupils, exploring an anthropological and spiritual narrative that unites peoples and continents far apart from one another. By turning these pages, one discovers that the footprint left by the cat in the path of man is not a simple trace destined to disappear in the sand, but a deep furrow, carved with the grace, mystery, and strength of its claws.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Independently published
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 13: 9798173250988
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 138
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Manufactured by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.fr/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxembourg