Most authorities consider Felis sylvestris lybica, a North African wildcat, the probable ancestor of modern domestic cats. In agricultural communities whose granaries attracted rats and mice, cat remains have been found associated with human artifacts as far back as 5000 b.c.e. Actual domestication is depicted in 1600 b.c.e. Egyptian tomb paintings showing cats sheltered under their owner's chair eating fish or gnawing bones; in one case, the cat is tied to the chair leg by a ribbon. Cat lovers enjoy believing that cats voluntarily joined human settlements, but Egyptians had been taming wild animals for more than a thousand years and probably deliberately adopted and tamed a tractable species of wild cat.
Cats became important symbols of Egyptian gods. Male cats represented the sun god Ra, daily battling the serpent of darkness as a tomcat. Females signified the mother goddess Bastet, symbolizing beauty, fertility, and motherhood. In contrast, during the Middle Ages Christians associated cats with paganism and witchcraft, burning many as agents of the devil.
After Rome conquered Egypt, the cat spread across Europe, eventually arriving in the New World and various oceanic islands. Human protection permitted genetic variation and mutation in coat color that would probably have been detrimental to survival in the wild. During the nineteenth century, people began to develop these variations into purebred strains. By the late twentieth century, cats had become the most popular companion animals in Europe and America. Yet the domestic cat retains the basic anatomy and behavior of its wild ancestors. As Alan Turner noted, "Structurally, it can be seen as simply a scaled-down model of a lion or a leopard."