Talk:Cats in ancient Egypt

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This sentence: "The superstitious persecution of cats by the Roman Catholic Church may have been one of the contributing factors in the Black Death in the Middle Ages." doesn't site any sources or give any other explanation for this sentence. Other wikipedia pages do not support this, nor do they deny it. I am interested in seeing some support for this sentence, both because it is interesting and because it is confusing to other readers. Sean 01:41, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

This is the best paper I've ever read. Sage, or whoever wrote this, is a genius. GENIUS

[edit] copyright?

I don't know where this is from, but it reads as if copied from some other source. It's definitely not an encyclopedia article--jacobolus (t) 15:03, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

It reads like a school or college essay or project, so you may be right; however, until the copyright can be addressed, I'm going to rewrite this page to make it more readable and wikipedia-standard. I can't check the facts as I don't know more about the topic than the original author, I'm just going to improve the readability, grammar and remove irrelevancies, that sort of thing. as a result I'll leave the author's citations intact, so perhaps they can fill in more details on their bibliographical sources at a later time. --Urbane legend 28 June 2005 16:42 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite (finished!)

I've spent a good while revising this page, removing some irrelevancies and altering the style for improved readability. I thought the section on Ra and his nightly journey through the underworld was irrelevant as it did not mention cats and there was only one passing mention of Bast. It's also covered in the main article on Ra. There are some facts I'm uncertain of, particularly the "tribal" sociology of Ancient Egypt - I'm unable to verify whether or not this is true, so I've given the original author the benefit of my doubt. I think the section on the Black Death may be irrelevant; I may cut it down or remove it when I have had a chance to reread the article properly. I have also left intact the original author's method of treating citations as I do not know the sources used, and I figure that by leaving them in place those who do know might be able to correct this. I know there's more work to do but I think I've broken the back of it, and it's getting rather late! --Urbane legend 28 June 2005 23:36 (UTC)

I've had another read and made a few more edits today, including removing much of the Black Death segment. It's irrelevant, and the importance of the cat in ending the plague seems to be overstated by the original author. Cats aren't mentioned at all in the entry for Black death. --Urbane legend 29 June 2005 12:20 (UTC)

It's coming along very nicely. Keep up the good work. –Hajor 29 June 2005 12:54 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind comment. The rewrite is now finished (or at least, as finished as anything can be on wikipedia!. There's a lot of new information added, irrelevant or unsubstantiated statements and passages removed, original information rewritten, removal of irrelevant intrawiki links, bibliography tracked down, and I've read the article about fifty times now and can't see any SPAG errors either, though they may be there anyway. I shan't be (too) offended by any tweaks! --Urbane legend 1 July 2005 01:51 (UTC)

[edit] More popular than dogs?

Can someone provide a reference for this statement? I've always thought and read that dogs were more popular.

There's apparently more cats then dods in the US if you search the web, but I'm not sure that we can conclude that because of this they are more popular (does the statistic include 'wild' cats?) 130.194.240.40 01:02, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I"m pretty sure it is true, but what we need to do is cite a study of how many households have cats versus dogs in various countries. Sean 20:38, 2 June 2006 (UTC)