you might think that cats get a ridiculous amount of attention from people today but that's nothing compared to how they were treated in ancient Egypt. since cats were believed to represent the Egyptian war goddess Bastet, the ancient Egyptian literally worshiped cats. their admiration was expressed in ways that we might find funny or shocking today. they liked cats so much that killing a cat in ancient Egypt, even on ancient, was punishable by death. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that when a cat passed away, the household would go into mourning as though a member of the family had died. family member would even shave off their eyebrows to show their loss. another way which ancient Egyptian showed love and respect for cats was through mummification. cats were often mummified after dying, a process normally reserved for kings and nobles. Hundreds of thousands of cat mummies have been found preserved in and around Egypt. So the next time you see someone fawning over a cat video on Youtube, remember that it could be worse