I see the possibility for a lot of name-calling here, so I figured I'd try
to intervene and perhaps even interject a little common sense.  The issue
is whether ferrets were domesticated by the Ancient Egyptians or someone
else.
 
I have a friend who's something of an amateur Egyptologist, and he says
there are no records of any weasels in Egypt, domestic or otherwise, and
certainly none of any small furry critters that weren't feline being used
to hunt rats.
 
Beyond that, though: ferrets are almost certainly descended from the
European polecat, correct?  Why did they go all the way to Egypt, in a
time before trade routes that did so, in order to be domesticated?
 
Besides which, most of us right now are dealing with keeping our furry
friends from dying of heat exhaustion--even here in Maine.  Egypt is
significantly warmer than the Northern US, and the Ancient Egyptians, for
all their technological wonders (no sarcasm!), hadn't invented air
conditioning, or even freon.
 
Common sense tells me that ferrets were native to Europe, perhaps Southern
(lots of pictures of Italian nobles with them), and were probably kept as
ratters before they were luxury pets, and before they were used to hunt
rabbits.  There have been a few different time periods in which cats were
considered evil; in such a time, a ferret would be a useful addition to
one's granary...
 
In any case, the bulk of the records center on Europe, not Africa.
 
Many people have advanced the Ancient Egyptian argument as a way to somehow
or other make our pets look better.  I don't see why it matters; the fact
is, they've been domesticated a long time, and the critters we have now as
pets would, in general, not know how to hunt for a living.  (About one in
five of mine seem to understand the concept at all.) In any case, there's a
lot of misinformation out there; if I'm inadverdently spreading any, please
let me know.  And let's not holler at each other about "making sure we have
all the facts." Especially when we don't.  We have theories, some of which
make a lot more sense than others.
 
Jen and the Crazy Business.
[Posted in FML issue 2732]