Images allegedly show ancient Egyptian sculptures with cats ignoring personal space. Are they real?

In late September, two images circulated online purportedly showing ancient Egyptian sculptures depicting cats walking and resting on their owners.

One of the images shows a sculpture, possibly a wood carving, of a cat in a museum display as either standing or walking on a person at rest. The other image features a cat sitting right up against the chin of a person whose eyes appear to be open.

For example, on Sept. 29, a Facebook user posted a graphic (archived) featuring the two images, with text reading, “4,000-year-old statues prove cats have always ignored personal space.” The post’s caption adds, “Cats Have Been Sitting on Their Humans for 4,000 Years.” The pair of images also spread on Threads and X (archived, archived).

(Nathanistic via Facebook)

Reverse image searches uncovered examples of the standing cat image on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, as well as the resting cat image on Instagram, Threads and X.

Cats prominently feature in ancient Egyptian artifacts, including in mummification. That may be one reason why some commenters under posts have posted remarks indicating they believe the images are authentic. Others mention artificial intelligence, saying they are skeptical about whether the images show actual artifacts that truly exist.

In sum, the images are fake and appear to be AI-generated — as do other images of Egyptian sculptures depicting cats interacting with people.

The aforementioned reverse image searches indicate that the earliest posts featuring the image of the cat standing or walking on top of the person first appeared on Soft Cat Memes (@softcatmemes) accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Threads on Sept. 25, as well as on the possibly-affiliated @hardcatmemes X account. The image contains overlaid text, reading, “Cats have been bothering their humans since the dawn of time.”

(@softcatmemes via Facebook)

The image of the cat sitting on a person also first appeared on the same accounts on Sept. 26, receiving more engagement. That second image also features overlaid text, reading, “Evidence suggests cats have never understood personal space.”

(@softcatmemes via Facebook)

Snopes contacted the manager of the accounts to confirm the user created the images with an AI tool. We also asked for the name of the tool and the exact text prompts submitted to create the content. We will update this article if we receive further information.

How we know images are fake

Reverse image searches failed to locate any posts or websites containing the same two images prior to late September. With the ongoing popularity of internet cat content, the idea that no one, until recently, would share supposedly real photos of ancient Egyptian sculptures depicting cats acting silly is unlikely.

As one Reddit user has noted, scans of the images with OpenAI’s free tool, that verifies content generated using the company’s chatbot, display the results, “This content was generated using OpenAI tools,” and, “We found a SynthID watermark that originated from OpenAI.” For example, a scan of the image of the cat sitting displays the information shown below.

(via OpenAI)

There is also an inconsistency with one of the shadows in that image. The faint shadow nearest where the photographer is meant to be standing (running from left to right along the long edge of the bed) indicates there is a light source on the other side of the display. However, only a shadow of the bed is cast. If the image were authentic, the angle of the shadow suggests the viewer would also be able to see a faint shadow of the human and cat sculptures. That is not the case in this image.

A scan of the other image of the cat standing or walking displays the same result using OpenAI’s tool. The absence of a shadow of the cat’s tail also further suggests this image is fake.

For further reading, we previously reported about another feline rumor that wild cheetahs have never killed humans.