There is some deep-seated human desire to depict animals just doing stuff. Some of the most common subjects of ancient cave paintings are large, wild animals, like bison horses, and deer. There is art of human subjects as well, but it’s fascinating to see that our ancestors, who really did not have as much free time to do whatever they wanted, felt the compulsion to depict the animals they saw around them.
We can’t really know exactly why early humans felt the need to create these drawings. Some anthropologists believe that these were ritual drawings, meant to attract more prey, as early humans were hunter-gatherers. Some have speculated that this art would also help educate other young hunters about what animals and dangers might exist, but why this couldn’t be communicated verbally seems unclear. It is entirely possible that this is just a case of art for the sake of art.
A more ambitious explanation comes from a team of archeologists from the University of Durham. They believe that the combinations of symbols in cave art could represent the tracking and conveying of information. Lines and dots for a “Y” symbol, are thought to represent giving birth, while the animals depicted display the mating cycle in a lunar calendar. This would indicate that these early animal memes were also a primitive form of writing.
Of course, we can’t discuss animal memes without talking about the ancient Egyptians. Besides the practical role of cats, killing grain-eating rats and snakes that would wander into houses, cats had a religious role in Egyptian society and were so revered that special cat cemeteries existed, where pets would be buried, sometimes even mummified. There are numerous examples of cats on walls or even decorations shaped like a cat.
While these aren’t memes in the modern sense of the word, depictions of cats did create a sort of shared frame of reference. Even non-cat owners in ancient Egypt would have likely been familiar with the mannerisms of cats. Craftspeople would create not just deified statutes, but statuettes of cats just hanging out, feeding kittens and just being, as we might say, weird little guys.
The Victorians, who are basically our contemporaries compared to the Egyptians, had a love of animal paintings as well. Livestock and dogs were greatly popular, but also art of prey animals, like deer and rabbits, somewhat reminiscent of the aforementioned cave drawings. Some pieces went further than just representing the animal but actually sought to include it as a live actor in the piece. “His Master's Voice” is a good example of this, where a dog looks, perplexed at a gramophone.
This is not a far cry from modern trends, where people will Facetime or Zoom-call their pets and film their bemused reactions. We love to see animals react to things and it seems that this subject has been popular long before our time. There is also a precedent for using animals and relatable stand-ins for humans, which we can see in various pieces of literature, such as George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” If you would like to see more cute and funny animal memes, check out our other articles here and here.
