The Book of the Dead Says Cats Were Sent to Guard the Dead — And They Never Stopped

The Egyptian Book of the Dead says a great cat guards the gate of the dead — and kills the serpent of darkness so the soul can pass. Why Egypt buried 80,000 mummified cats, and what the animal asleep in your house is still doing at 2am. From the Great Cat of Ra to the cat necropolis at Beni Hasan, we trace why the Egyptians made the cat a guardian at the threshold of death — and the instinct it still carries. Primary source: the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Spell 17 ("I am the cat…"); the Great Cat of Ra & the serpent Apep; the Beni Hasan cat burials; Ottoni et al., Nature Ecology & Evolution (2017). #EgyptianBookOfTheDead #AncientEgypt #Cats #Bastet #Afterlife