Cats of the Pharaohs: Genetic Comparison of Egyptian Cat Mummies to their Feline Contemporaries.

ABSTRACT: The ancient Egyptians mummified an abundance of cats during the Late Period (664 - 332 BC). The overlapping morphology and sizes of developing wildcats and domestic cats confounds the identity of mummified cat species. Genetic analyses should support mummy identification and was conducted on two long bones and a mandible of three cats that were mummified by the ancient Egyptians. The mummy DNA was extracted in a dedicated ancient DNA laboratory at the University of California - Davis, then directly sequencing between 246 and 402 bp of the mtDNA control region from each bone. When compared to a dataset of wildcats (Felis silvestris silvestris, F. s. tristrami, and F. chaus) as well as a previously published worldwide dataset of modern domestic cat samples, including Egypt, the DNA evidence

SUBMITTER: Kurushima JD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3426309 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature