Origins
The exact origin of the Egyptian Mau is not recorded and therefore cannot be known for certain. The Egyptian Mau is often said to be descended from African wild cats, and its ancestor is depicted essentially unchanged in wall paintings of Ancient Egypt. The breed name itself references the Middle Egyptian word mw (literally, cat).
In Ancient Egypt, Maus were used for hunting due to their bird-like voices. They were small enough not to carry away the prey for themselves and were able to alert hunters to the location of the prey without scaring off other animals of prey.
The modern Mau is said to have originated in 1952, in Italy, when exiled Russian Princess Natalie Troubetskaya met the cat of the Egyptian Ambassador to Italy. She convinced him to obtain several cats from Egypt for her, and she began to breed them. From her the Mau has been described as having a "troubled" look, with their round eyes and open expression. The Mau achieved championship status in some organizations in 1968. There were attempts by British breeders to create Maus from cross-breeds of Abyssinians, Siamese and tabbies, however these did not resemble the true Maus. This mix became the basis for the Ocicat.
Egyptian Maus will either have a 'scarab beetle' or 'M' marking on their foreheads, those with the latter tend to be from the United States.
Read more about this topic: Egyptian Mau
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)