Egyptian Mau

The history is a little hazy and is one of the most interesting aspects of this breed. Sarah Hartwell says that this cat breed could be the oldest domestic cat breed originating in the period of Egyptian history called, the "Egyptian Middle Period", roughly between 2030 BC and 1640 BC (about 4000 years ago).

Some experts say (in a recently published article) that the wild cat was domesticated some 9,500 years ago. If that were true the Egyptian Mau wouldn't be the first domestic cat breed. Although at the time wild cats were domesticated there were no formally recognized domestic cat breeds.

It seems that the evidence that the Egyptian Mau is a domesticated sub-species of the African Wildcat is found in ancient Egyptian illustrations. This may be fairly good evidence but probably isn't conclusive