Ash-sharq Volume 6 (2022): 75–110 The cat, a hidden pet in Mesopotamia? Tablet 45 of Šhumma alu and a method to identify this feline Laura Battini UMR 7192, CNRS-PSL 'Je souhaite dans ma maison une femme ayant sa raison, un chat passant parmi les livres, des amis en toute saison sans lesquels je ne peux pas vivre.' (Apollinaire, Le chat) Abstract. Unlike Egypt, where the cat played an important role, Mesopotamia ofers very limited documentation on cats, both in textual and archaeological data. This article aims to bring together the diferent pieces of a puzzle that is difcult to restore and to question the reasons for this limited documentation. In the Babylonian map of the world (Figure 1), which according to Horowitz cannot be older than the 9th century BCE (Horowitz 1998: 25), the text on the obverse relates the origin of certain animals, among them the cat. The text reads: