Cyprus Cat Names, Cypriot Cat Names, Page 10

The oldest evidence of a cat living alongside humans was found on Cyprus. At Shillourokambos, a Neolithic site near modern Limassol, archaeologist Jean Guilaine excavated a roughly eight-month-old wildcat carefully buried in a human grave dated to about 9,500 years ago. The find, published in Science in 2004, predates Egyptian cat evidence by some four thousand years, and matters for a second reason: Cyprus has no native wildcat species, so the cat had to have arrived by boat with the people who buried it.

Modern Cyprus cats descend from the long-running landrace of the island's mountainous interior. They developed bushy coats and substantial bodies to handle cool, wet weather and prey heavier than the average domestic cat hunts: rats, large lizards, and snakes. The breed is recognized by the World Cat Federation under the name Aphrodite's Giant (full recognition 1 July 2012) and by TICA under the name Aphrodite (Preliminary New Breed, September 2017). CFA and GCCF do not currently recognize the breed.

Naming a Cyprus cat naturally pulls from the island's geography and its cult of Aphrodite, who in Cypriot tradition is born from sea foam at Petra tou Romiou on the southern coast. Aphrodite, Adonis, Pygmalion, and Helen (after the empress whose 4th-century cats reputedly defended monasteries from snakes) all root the name in real island history rather than generic mythology. Geographic names work the same way: Paphos, Kyrenia, Troodos, Larnaca.

Cyprus cats share a Mediterranean island lineage with the Aegean and the Turkish Van. Both are landrace breeds with similar coats and similar histories of independent island development.