International Hug Your Cat Day – May 30, 2027

History of International Hug Your Cat Day

Cats were revered by the ancient Egyptians, and the Egyptian goddess Bastet is frequently depicted as a cat, sometimes in the fighting stance of a lioness. According to Herodotus, a Greek historian, killing a cat was forbidden in ancient times, and whenever a household cat died of natural causes, the entire household mourned the death of the cat and shaved their eyebrows as if it were one of them.

When a cat died in a Greek family, the dead cat was taken to the sacred city of Bubastis, where it was embalmed and buried in sacred repositories. Herodotus was taken aback by the sight of domestic cats in Egypt, as he had only ever seen wild cats. Keeping cats as pets shares a similar tradition with the ancient Greeks and Romans, who kept weasels as pets because they were considered best for ‌killing rodents. The earliest clear evidence of Greek domestic cats can be found in two coins from Magna Graecia dating from the middle of the fifth century B.C.

The coins depict Iokastis and Phalanthus, the legendary founders of Rhegion and Taras respectively, playing with their pet cats. Back in the day, the Greek word for ‘cat’ was ‌ ‘ailouros,’ which meant ‘having the waving tail.’ Apart from that, cats are rarely mentioned in ancient Greek literature. In his book “History of Animals,” Aristotle stated that “female cats are naturally lecherous.” The Greeks later syncretized their own goddess Artemis with the Egyptian goddess Bastet, appropriating Bastet’s associations with cats and attributing them to Artemis. When the deities flee to Egypt in animal forms in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” the goddess Diana allegedly transforms into a cat.