The Starving of Saqqara in Montreal. The name Saqqara refers to the burial ground of Memphis, Egypt. How the name came to be attached to the artifact is not known. The statue has been at Concordia University since 1999. Experts from the University of Cambridge, the British Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Israel Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum have all been consulted, without success. The script has been determined to not be Aramaic, Demotic, Egyptian, Hebrew, or Syriac. One expert, Clarence Epstein, suggests that it represents a pair of conquered captives. The sculpture was displayed to the public from March 16 to 18,
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