Cats were sacred in ancient Egypt. They worshipped a cat god called Bastet, and mummified their cats to prepare them for the afterlife. When a cat died it was customary for its owner to shave off his eyebrows to demonstrate grief. All this changed in the 19th century, when mummified cats were exported from Egypt to be used as fertiliser. In 1888, a Nile farmer found a cat cemetery containing 10,000 mummified cats. All 19 tons of them were shipped to Liverpool and sold as fertiliser for £4 a ton.