Domestication of animals produced a dramatic change in the way people lived. Civilizations which had relied on hunting and gathering as a means of subsistence now built permanent settlements and engaged in a pastoral existence relying on their cattle and crops. Once people realized that animals could be tamed, the creatures became incorporated into the most basic and widespread rituals of the culture. Worship of animals in Egypt is well known (most notably their reverence for the cat who symbolized the goddess of the hearth and home, Bastet) but many ancient cultures incorporated animal imagery into their religious icons and practices. Wild animals came to represent untamed forces in the universe (such as the lions of the goddess Inanna in
