Maarten Raven Maarten Raven Maarten J. Raven (born 1953, Utrecht) is a Dutch Egyptologist. Raven is the curator (since 1978) of the department of Egyptology at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden. In addition to his work at the museum, he has been active as an archeologist in Saqqara since 1975. In Saqqara, he has been working (as joint field director since 1999) on a New Kingdom archeological burial site, a cooperation of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden and the Egypt Exploration Society (1975–1998) and Leiden University (1999-) In September 2012 he was also appointed as extraordinary professor 'Museology of Ancient Egypt' at
Cats in ancient Egypt known from at least the Second Dynasty 2890 BC onwards. At the time, she was depicted with a lion ("Panthera leo") head. Seals and stone vessels with her name were found in the tombs of the pharaohs Khafra and Nyuserre Ini, indicating that she was regarded as protector since the mid 30th century BC during the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties. A wall painting in the Fifth Dynasty’s burial ground at Saqqara shows a small cat with a collar, suggesting that tamed African wildcats were kept in the pharaonic quarters by the 26th century BC. Amulets with cat heads came into