Guest Author - Julie L Baumler

When asked to associate a cat with the Middle East, the first thing that comes to mind, in most cases, is probably the Persian. Others may think of the ancient Egyptian cat goddess Bast or the importance of cats in ancient Egyptian society where at one point they themselves were worshiped as gods and even mummified when they died. These images are both true and misleading. Recent genetic and archaeological studies show that small cats and humans first started living together in the Fertile Crescent somewhere between five and eight thousand years ago. Most scientists would call this process domestication, but anyone with more than passing familiarity with cats probably have their doubts about whether cats are actually domesticated or have found a symbiotic role in human society while remaining essentially wild. None the less, this relationship started in the Fertile Crescent shortly after the beginning of grain-based agriculture. This makes practical sense, since agriculture implies food storage which attracts rodents and bugs. Cats are both attracted by and hunt these pests. This rodent control ability has made cats welcome (or at least tolerated) in human communities ever since. As a result, all domestic cats originated in this area of the Middle East.

The Persian cat has long been believed to have originated from long haired cats that occasionally traveled from Persia (modern day Iran at the eastern end of the Fertile Crescent) west across the desert with trade caravans. However, the same genetic studies that showed that domestic cats originated in the Fertile Crescent, showed that in fact, pure breed Persian cats today are more genetically similar to non-purpose bred cats from Europe than non-purpose bred domestic cats from the Middle East. So, while all cats originally came from the Middle East, the Persian cat of today is primarily European in origin.

You can read more about the study into the genetic background of the domestic cat at Science Daily.