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Favorite cat art

2K views 20 replies 7 participants last post by  Myosr 
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#21 ·
I always knew about these weird cat drawings, but decided to look them up today for some reason.

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An even more common imagery involving cats in anthropomorphized situations involves another theme of reversal, namely, the motif of a seated elite mouse being waited on by a servant cat.7 This motif appears on ostraca as well as the Cairo and British Museum papyri, and parodies countless funerary scenes of tomb owners being waited on by servants. A beautiful example, on a limestone ostracon of unknown findspot (now in Brooklyn), shows an anthropomorphized mouse seated on a folding stool to the right of the scene (Figure 4) (Babcock 2014, pl. 16). The mouse has drooping breasts and a round belly, wears a long dress, and has a lotus flower on her forehead; she holds a dish or cup in one paw, and fish bones or a flower as well as a piece of linen cloth in the other paw.8 Before her (to the viewer’s left), a tabby standing on its hind legs and tail pressed anxiously between its paws, holding a similar piece of cloth, waves a fan and offers a plucked and roasted duck or goose to the mouse.

In this motif, the humorous element of animals imitating human behavior revolves, first of all, around the parody of banquet scenes frequently depicted in the Theban tombs. In those tomb scenes, the deceased is served his lavish banquet meal by female servants. The comic effect of animals acting out such banquet scenes is enhanced by reversing the natural animal order in which the predator serves the prey. Additionally, the mouse is generally understood as female and the cat as male, although admittedly the mouse may also portray an obese elderly official with drooping breasts and the cat’s gender is indeterminable.9 Still, another humorous level may then involve a reversal of gender roles, as the lady mouse is being served by a tom cat, instead of servant girls waiting on an elite man. Interpretations of these parodies of the funerary banquet scenes range from illustrations of a folk tale or fable, caricatures of the ruling elite, or actual satire of the royal family. If, as Babcock notes, the artists drawing these scenes felt an affinity with elite culture, it is difficult to see the imagery as biting satire of that same elite. Still, the comically topsy-turvy element of role reversal may well be a reflection of the uncertain times of the late New Kingdom—and thus voice ridicule at the failure of the ruling class to maintain justice and order (ma῾at).
I find this interesting. Like is the humor coming from an "oh look we are living in a decedant era, even male cats are serving female mice"? or maybe just reversing the "natural order" for fun? The author doesn't seem to know, lol. it also looks kinda blasphemous, if cats are sacred. So that's weird. 🤔

There's also another one with cats serving a mouse on a toilet and nursing her child.

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