The Ancient Egyptians kept many animals as household pets, including cats, dogs, monkeys, gazelles, and birds. The cat was a favorite Egyptian Pets because it killed rats and mice in the house, and the Egyptians believed that the cat-goddess, Bastet, protected the home. Some cats may have been specially trained to help their masters when they hunted birds.

Different Types of Egyptian Pets

Some of the birds included falcons, these Egyptian pets birds were important because of their religious significance; geese, these honking bird version of a watchdog were popular with nobles; other bird pets include ducks and turtle doves.

Dogs were useful pets. They were used as guard dogs and hunting dogs as they have been in many other cultures around the world. Anubis is often referred to as the jackal-headed god, but Egyptians seem to have identified other dogs with this god, and at times domestic dogs were buried as sacred animals in the Anubieion catacombs at Saqqara.

Pets were not only present as paintings or models. The mummified bodies of pets have also been found in tombs. A certain Hapymen, buried at Abydos, was so fond of his pet dog that it was mummified and wrapped in linen and placed at the side of his feet in his coffin.

The Egyptians loved their pets and went to great lengths to keep them forever. Many of the common pets mummified were dogs, cats, and monkeys. These animals were mummified and in most cases, a careful effort was used to preserve them.

Different Types of Animals

The Ancient Egyptians domesticated many different types of animals – sheep, cattle, goats, pigs, geese and later horses. Mostly they used the animals to supply milk, wool, meat, eggs, leather, skins, horns, fat, and manual labor.

The cattle in Egypt were, in the pre-dynastic Period, a long-horned variety of cattle, but a thinner short-horned variety became the norm during the Old Kingdom onwards. The cattle were used for sacrificial purposes as well as being draft animals.

Green monkeys and baboons were the second most popular pets after dogs. It is concluded that the primary reason for this popularity is the ability to train these animals to dance, sing, and even play musical instruments in order to entertain their owners and guests.

Hathor was the royal goddess. Her name means ‘House of Horus.” Her image could take the form of a cow, a woman with a cow’s head, or a woman wearing the horns of a cow. As a motherly cow, she gave the king her divine milk and protected him as a cow protects her calf. She was the goddess of love, music, singing, and dance.