The Ancient Egyptians were cat crazy.
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Yes they were! In Ancient Egyptian animals were very important and quite often worshiped. The most highly respected of them all being the cat. The Ancient Egyptians believed that animals were incarnations of the gods so it was popular to keep animals as pets. The most popular being cats but also dogs, hawks, lions and baboons were kept at home.
If you were caught killing or injuring a cat in Ancient Egypt the penalties were high, usually resulting in death. However the only time that this was an exception was if there was an overpopulation of cats and it needed reducing. Cats would be offered as sacrifices to the gods and this would lower the population.
There was a goddess just for cats.
The Goddess Bastet, was the representation of this love for cats and she was depicted as half cat, half woman. It was believed that Bastet protected the home from evil spirits, disease and protected the women and children of the household.
Egyptians were some of the first people to mummify their dead.
In Ancient Egypt, they believed that there was an afterlife and that the only way of reaching it safely was to follow a strict set of procedures to prepare a dead body. The process took around 70 days. When a body was being prepared for mummification, firstly the organs would have to be removed and placed into Canopic jars.
The next stage was to remove all moisture from the body. To do this they covered the body in a powdered type of salt and let it rest for around 35-40 days, or until all the moisture was gone.