Cats have been excavated in Jericho from as early as the pre-pottery Neolithic period (before 6000 B.C.E.). At most, these ancient cats may have co-existed in some form with humans, although they were not yet domesticated.
To date, we have found no evidence that the Israelites kept cats in their houses. The scant archaeological evidence of cats in a domestic context from Bronze and Iron Age Israel shows no connection to the Israelites, and the Bible never mentions cats. This silence stands in contrast with the evidence from Egypt, where cats were dearly loved and often depicted in wall paintings and bronzes from the mid-second through late-first millennium B.C.E.
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