美国国家公共电台 NPR No Kitten Around: Museum Exhibit Celebrates 'Divine Felines'

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

All right. I'm going to fess up. I am not a cat person. But NPR's Susan Stamberg is, which is why she leapt at the opportunity to check out a new exhibition at the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery of Asian art. The exhibition is called "Divine Felines 1." It features images of big and small cats honored in ancient Egypt. Susan says the show prompts new respect for the creature curled up on the windowsill.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE ARISTOCATS")

SCATMAN CROTHERS: (As Scat Cat, singing) Everybody wants to be a cat.

SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE 2: Ever feel fearful or brave, protective, aggressive? There's a cat for that in the religious practices of ancient Egypt. Ancient as in 2,000 to 4,000 years B.C.

Did the Egyptians worship cats?

ANTONIETTA CATANZARITI: No, they did not worship cats. What they did is to observe their behavior.

STAMBERG: Antonietta Catanzariti, the curator, says they noticed that cats, especially big ones, were expert hunters - quick, precise. Also, they were nurturing 3.

CATANZARITI: They're protective against their cubs 4 for lions, or kittens for cats, and as well that they were aggressive when it's necessary and killed if necessary.

STAMBERG: The ancient Egyptians saw those characteristics as signs of divinity. They created gods and goddesses in their image. The Sackler show, which originated at the Brooklyn Museum, has 80 examples. Now, Egyptians had lots of animal gods and goddesses.

CATANZARITI: Crocodiles or snakes, dogs, bulls. Mention it, you will have it (laughter_).

STAMBERG: But cats reigned 5 supreme 6, from kittens nursing in a tiny bronze sculpture to the powerful goddess Sekhmet. In stone, she has the face of a lion and the body of a woman. She protected pharoahs in war. Once, according to the myth, her father, the Sun god, sent her down to punish earthlings for rebelling against him. Instead, she almost destroyed them. Dad felt bad. Who'd be left to worship him? To stop her, he colored some beer red, like blood, and got her drunk.

CATANZARITI: She drinks. And she transformed into a cat, which is more docile 7. It's more, like, peaceful, and human kind is saved. This is our mummy from the Smithsonian.

STAMBERG: This is your mummy? I'm sorry, it looks like a baseball bat with a nice carved top.

Forgive - disrespectful - it was once a tiny kitten. Egyptians loved cats so much they wanted to be buried with them. They also bred cats to be killed, mummified, sold and offered to a goddess. Over the years, millions of cat mummies were offered and not just to goddesses.

CATANZARITI: In the 1890s, people from England went to Egypt and they collect all these mummies. One cargo 8 was 180,000 of them. They were used as fertilizery (ph) in the England.

STAMBERG: Lions got better treatment. They were carved out of limestone 9 to guard grand places. Think 300 B.C. Egypt's version of the big New York Public Library. A majestic 10, recumbent lion from Giza represented the king. He's resting. That's symbolic 11.

CATANZARITI: Just being relaxed, it associated to the king being comfortable in his role as a ruler. He knows what he's doing.

STAMBERG: Big cats and little ones representing the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt. The Sackler labels them "Divine Felines." And they are. In Washington, I'm Susan Stamberg. NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EV'RYBODY WANTS TO BE A CAT")

PHIL HARRIS: (Singing) Everybody wants to be a because the cat's the only cat who knows where it's at.