Playful paws on the pages of history (6 photos)

Behind every great man in history there is her...





Most often a woman, but sometimes a cat. And the prints of their playful paws, left on centuries-old objects, only emphasize the power of the tailed creatures, who have gone down in history with a light tread.



Hadrian's Wall is one of the largest ancient fortification and cultural monuments of Roman civilization on the territory of the Roman colonies. Built by the Romans under Emperor Hadrian in 122–128 to prevent raids by the Picts and Brigantes from the north. The length was about 117 km. Currently it is one of the main attractions of Northern England. Ancient cats marked themselves on the wall, leaving prints of their ancient paws.





And again Rome. Tegula - flat tiles with raised edges were used in the construction of both citizens' houses and public buildings. To ensure the strength of the roof and protection from moisture, it was alternated with imbex - tiles in the shape of a half cylinder. Some very proud ancient Roman cat with the manners of a foreman walked through the soft clay blanks set out to dry. An outstanding imprinted tile made in the 1st century AD is on display in the museum in the British city of Gloucester.



And the pages of this rare book, printed around 1472 (kept at the University of Otago, New Zealand), also included a local mouse catcher, not suffering from excessive modesty.

While reading the word-packed pages of Astezanus de Asta's Summa de casibus conscientiae, university special collections librarian Dr. Donald Kerr discovered three inky cat paw prints.

Two of the prints that adorn page 250 are smudged, but the third stands out clearly over the Latin text.

The book, a treatise on the Ten Commandments, Virtues and Vices, Civil Law, and other subjects, and for convenience entitled Corpus Juris, was printed by the German printer Johann Mentelin about 1472 or 1473.

Mentelin was called a “sloppy printer” - perhaps that’s why. But the discovery of cat prints conjures up a particularly cozy image of a medieval printing house.



While this brick, made before the beginning of the second century in Britain, then still controlled by Rome, was calmly waiting for its turn to be sent to the kiln, some mischievous cat proudly walked through the blank and went about his business. Leaving the world with an imprint that is now kept in a museum.



And this cat treated his owner’s property in a very masterly manner. Around the year 1420, a clerk worked diligently in Deventer (Netherlands). He left the page to dry thoroughly overnight. And in the morning I discovered something disgraceful: the cat liked (or didn’t like) something, and she marked the page. The distressed clerk did not begin the work again, because the creation of handwritten volumes was still a quest. But he simply left the page on which the cat peed blank, adding a Latin curse addressed to the tailed scoundrel, accompanied by a portrait of the alleged dirty trick:

There is nothing here because the cat peed here. Damn that vile cat who urinated on this book at night in Deventer, and because of her, the other cats too. Be careful not to leave books open overnight where cats walk.

How did your cat decide to make his mark in history?