This one is a crazy story. In the late 19th century an Egyptian farmer found a massive burial site of mummified cats. How massive? We are talking tonnes and tonnes of mummified cats. They built up to such large numbers during the Ptolemaic period through a ritual donation of a mummified cat per visit to the temple (it was sort of a pay one cat to enter deal).
These ancient mummified cats were collected by an Alexandrian merchant who put them on a ship to be sold in England. In Liverpool 9 tonnes of mummified cats were sold at an auction for £5 17s a tonne. They were sold as fertilizer. The cats were more than 2000 years old and their final fate was to be ground up and spread over the English countryside.
As an additional slap in the face to an ancient culture the English auctioneer used a cat skull as the gavel.
Tristan Wadsworth