Bastet

Bastet or Bast (Ancient Egyptian: bꜣstjt "She of the Ointment

Bastet
Jar", Coptic: Ⲟⲩⲃⲁⲥⲧⲉ[2] /ubaste/) was a goddess of ancient
Egyptian religion, worshiped as early as the Second Dynasty Goddess of cosmetics, cats, love,
(2890 BCE). Her name also is rendered as B'sst, Baast, Ubaste, the home, healing, joy,
and Baset.[3] In ancient Greek religion, she was known as motherhood, pleasure, ointments,
Ailuros (Koinē Greek: αἴλουρος "cat"). childbirth, protection, the hearth,
women, secrets, fertility, dance,
Bastet was worshiped in Bubastis in Lower Egypt, originally as a festivals, song, the dawn, fire,
lioness goddess, a role shared by other deities such as Sekhmet. pregnancy, sex, family, warfare[a]
Eventually Bastet and Sekhmet were characterized as two aspects
of the same goddess, with Sekhmet representing the powerful
warrior and protector aspect and Bastet, who increasingly was
depicted as a cat, representing a gentler aspect.[4]

Contents
Name
Role in ancient Egypt
Bubastis
Temple
Festival
History
In popular culture
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
External links Bastet in her late form of a cat-
headed woman, rather than a
lioness
Name Name in
hieroglyphs
Bastet, the form of the name that is most commonly adopted by [1]
Egyptologists today because of its use in later dynasties, is a
modern convention offering one possible reconstruction. In early Major cult Bubastis
Egyptian, her name appears to have been bꜣstt. In Egyptian center
writing, the second t marks a feminine ending but usually was not Symbol lioness, cat, ointment
pronounced, and the aleph ꜣ ( ) may have moved to a position jar, sistrum, solar disk
Personal information
before the accented syllable, ꜣbst.[5] By the first millennium, Consort Ptah
then, bꜣstt would have been something like *Ubaste (< *Ubastat) Offspring Maahes
in Egyptian speech, later becoming Coptic Oubaste.[5]
Parents Ra and Isis
What the name of the goddess Siblings Horus and Anhur (half-
means remains uncertain.[5] brothers)
Names of ancient Egyptian Greek Artemis
deities often were represented as equivalent
references to associations or with
euphemisms, being cult secrets. One recent suggestion by Stephen
Quirke (Ancient Egyptian Religion) explains Bastet as meaning, "She of
the ointment jar". This ties in with the observation that her name was
written with the hieroglyph for ointment jar (bꜣs) and that she was
associated with protective ointments, among other things.[5] The name of
the material known as alabaster might, through Greek, come from the
name of the goddess. This association would have come about much later
than when the goddess was a protective lioness goddess, however, and is
Wadjet-Bastet, with a useful only in deciphering the origin of the term, alabaster.
lioness head, the solar disk,
and the cobra that
represents Wadjet Role in ancient Egypt
Bastet was originally a fierce lioness warrior goddess of the sun
worshiped throughout most of ancient Egyptian history, but later she was changed into the cat goddess
that is familiar today, becoming Bastet.[6] She then was depicted as the daughter of Ra and Isis, and the
consort of Ptah, with whom she had a son Maahes.[6]

As protector of Lower Egypt, she was seen as defender of the king, and consequently of the sun god, Ra.
Along with other deities such as Hathor, Sekhmet, and Isis, Bastet was associated with the Eye of Ra.[7]
She has been depicted as fighting the evil snake named Apep, an enemy of Ra.[8] In addition to her solar
connections, sometimes she was called "eye of the moon".[9]

Bastet was also a goddess of pregnancy and childbirth, possibly because of the fertility of the domestic
cat.[10]

Images of Bastet were often created from alabaster. The goddess was sometimes depicted holding a
ceremonial sistrum in one hand and an aegis in the other—the aegis usually resembling a collar or gorget,
embellished with a lioness head.

Bastet was also depicted as the goddess of protection against contagious diseases and evil spirits.[11]

Bubastis
Bastet was a local deity whose religious sect was centered in the city that became named, Bubastis. It lay
in the Nile Delta near what is known today as Zagazig.[12][13] The town, known in Egyptian as pr-bꜣstt
(also transliterated as Per-Bastet), carries her name, literally meaning House of Bastet. It was known in
Greek as Boubastis (Βούβαστις) and translated into Hebrew as Pî-beset, spelled without the initial t sound
of the last syllable.[5] In the biblical Book of Ezekiel 30:17, the town appears in the Hebrew form
Pibeseth.[12]
Temple
Herodotus, an ancient Greek historian who traveled in Egypt in
the fifth century BCE, describes Bastet's temple at some
length:[14]

Save for the entrance, it stands on an island; two

separate channels approach it from the Nile, and
after coming up to the entry of the temple, they run
round it on opposite sides; each of them a hundred
feet wide, and overshadowed by trees. The temple is
in the midst of the city, the whole circuit of which
commands a view down into it; for the city's level
has been raised, but that of the temple has been left
as it was from the first, so that it can be seen into
from without. A stone wall, carven with figures, runs
round it; within is a grove of very tall trees growing
round a great shrine, wherein is the image of the
goddess; the temple is a square, each side measuring An Eighteenth Dynasty burial artifact
a furlong. A road, paved with stone, of about three from the tomb of Tutankhamun
furlongs' length leads to the entrance, running (c. 1323 BC), an alabaster cosmetic
eastward through the market place, towards the jar topped with a lioness representing
temple of Hermes; this road is about 400 feet wide, Bastet — Cairo Museum

and bordered by trees reaching to heaven.

This description by Herodotus and several Egyptian texts suggest that water surrounded the temple on
three (out of four) sides, forming a type of lake known as, isheru, not too dissimilar from that
surrounding the temple of the mother goddess Mut in Karnak at Thebes.[12] These lakes were typical
components of temples devoted to a number of lioness goddesses, who are said to represent one original
goddess, Bastet, Mut, Tefnut, Hathor, and Sakhmet,[12] and came to be associated with sun gods such as
Horus and Ra as well as the Eye of Ra. Each of them had to be appeased by a specific set of rituals.[12]
One myth relates that a lioness, fiery and wrathful, was once cooled down by the water of the lake,
transformed into a gentle cat, and settled in the temple.[12]

At the Bubastis temple, some cats were found to have been mummified and buried, many next to their
owners. More than 300,000 mummified cats were discovered when Bastet's temple was excavated.
Turner and Bateson suggest that the status of the cat was roughly equivalent to that of the cow in modern
India. The death of a cat might leave a family in great mourning and those who could, would have them
embalmed or buried in cat cemeteries—pointing to the great prevalence of the cult of Bastet. Extensive
burials of cat remains were found not only at Bubastis, but also at Beni Hasan and Saqqara. In 1888, a
farmer uncovered a burial site of many hundreds of thousands of cats in Beni Hasan.[4]

Festival
Herodotus also relates that of the many solemn festivals held in Egypt, the most important and most
popular one was that celebrated in Bubastis in honor of this goddess.[15][16] Each year on the day of her
festival, the town was said to have attracted some 700,000 visitors, both men and women (but not
children), who arrived in numerous crowded ships. The women engaged in music, song, and dance on
their way to the place. Great sacrifices were made and prodigious amounts of wine were drunk—more
than was the case throughout the year.[17] This accords well with Egyptian sources that prescribe that
lioness goddesses are to be appeased with the "feasts of drunkenness".[5] A festival of Bastet was known
to be celebrated during the New Kingdom at Bubastis. The block statue from the eighteenth dynasty
(c. 1380 BC) of Nefer-ka, the wab-priest of Sekhmet,[18] provides written evidence for this. The
inscription suggests that the king, Amenhotep III, was present at the event and had great offerings made
to the deity.

History
Bastet first appears in the third millennium BC, where she is depicted as either a fierce lioness or a
woman with the head of a lioness.[12] Two thousand years later, during the Third Intermediate Period of
Egypt (c. 1070–712 BC), Bastet began to be depicted as a domestic cat or a cat-headed woman.[19]

Scribes of the New Kingdom and later eras began referring to her with an additional feminine suffix, as
Bastet. The name change is thought to have been added to emphasize pronunciation of the ending t
sound, often left silent.

Cats in ancient Egypt were highly revered, partly due to their ability to combat vermin such as mice, rats
(which threatened key food supplies), and snakes—especially cobras. Cats of royalty were, in some
instances, known to be dressed in golden jewelry and were allowed to eat from the plates of their owners.
Turner and Bateson estimate that during the Twenty-second Dynasty (c. 945–715 BC), Bastet worship
changed from being a lioness deity into being predominantly a major cat deity.[4] Because domestic cats
tend to be tender and protective of their offspring, Bastet was also regarded as a good mother and
sometimes was depicted with numerous kittens.

The native Egyptian rulers were replaced by Greeks during an occupation of Ancient Egypt in the
Ptolemaic Dynasty that lasted almost 300 years. The Greeks sometimes equated Bastet with one of their
goddesses, Artemis.[10]

In popular culture

See also
Cats in ancient Egypt

Notes
a. In some cults, particularly in Per-Bast.

References
Herodotus, ed. H. Stein (et al.) and tr. AD Godley (1920), Herodotus 1. Books 1 and 2. Loeb
Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts
E. Bernhauer, "Block Statue of Nefer-ka (http://project-min.de/home/english/restoration.htm
l)", in: M. I. Bakr, H. Brandl, Faye Kalloniatis (eds.): Egyptian Antiquities from Kufur Nigm
and Bubastis. Berlin 2010, pp. 176–179 ISBN 978-3-00-033509-9.
 Velde, Herman te (1999). "Bastet". In Karel van der Toorn; Bob Becking; Pieter W. van der
Horst (eds.). Dictionary of Demons and Deities in the Bible (2nd ed.). Leiden: Brill
Academic. pp. 164–5. ISBN 90-04-11119-0.
Serpell, James A. "Domestication and History of the Cat" (https://books.google.com/books?i
d=kO5y0fnLUD4C&pg=PA179). In Dennis C. Turner; Paul Patrick Gordon Bateson (eds.).
The Domestic Cat: the Biology of its Behaviour. pp. 177–192.
1. Hart, George (2005). The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, Second
Edition, p. 45
2. "Coptic Dictionary Online" (https://corpling.uis.georgetown.edu/coptic-dictionary/entry.cgi?en
try=4899&super=1948). corpling.uis.georgetown.edu.
3. Badawi, Cherine. Footprint Egypt. Footprint Travel Guides, 2004.
4. Serpell, "Domestication and History of the Cat", p. 184.
5. Te Velde, "Bastet", p. 165.
6. Pinch, Geraldine (2002). Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and
Traditions of Ancient Egypt. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 115.
7. Darnell, John Coleman (1997). "The Apotropaic Goddess in the Eye". Studien zur
Altägyptischen Kultur. 24: 35–48. JSTOR 25152728
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/25152728).
8. Pinch, Geraldine (2002). Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and
Traditions of Ancient Egypt. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 130.
9. Wilkinson, Richard H. (2003). The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt.
Thames & Hudson. p. 176
10. Delia, Diana (1999). "Isis, or the Moon". In W. Clarysse, A. Schoors, H. Willems. Egyptian
Religion: The Last Thousand Years. Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Jan Quaegebeur.
Peeters. pp. 545–546
11. Mark, Joshua J. (July 24, 2016). "Bastet" (https://web.archive.org/web/20181113171025/htt
ps://www.ancient.eu/Bastet/). Ancient History Encyclopedia. Archived from the original (http
s://www.ancient.eu/Bastet/) on November 13, 2018. Retrieved December 5, 2018.
12. Te Velde, "Bastet", p. 164.
13. Bastet (http://www.egyptianmuseum.gov.eg/bastet.html) Archived (https://web.archive.org/w
eb/20080703204648/http://www.egyptianmuseum.gov.eg/bastet.html) July 3, 2008, at the
Wayback Machine Egyptian Museum
14. Herodotus, Book 2, chapter 138.
15. Herodotus, Book 2, chapter 59.
16. Herodotus, Book 2, chapter 137.
17. Herodotus, Book 2, chapter 60.
18. "restoration" (http://project-min.de/home/english/restoration.html). project-min.de. Retrieved
2018-03-19.
19. Robins, Gay (2008). The Art of Ancient Egypt: Revised Edition. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press. p. 197. ISBN 978-0-674-03065-7.

Further reading
Malek, Jaromir (1993). The Cat in Ancient Egypt. London: British Museum Press.
Otto, Eberhard (1972–1992). "Bastet". In W. Helck; et al. (eds.). Lexicon der Ägyptologie. 1.
Wiesbaden. pp. 628–30.
Quaegebeur, J. (1991). "Le culte de Boubastis - Bastet en Egypte gréco-romaine". In
Delvaux, L.; Warmenbol, E. (eds.). Les divins chat d'Egypte. Leuven. pp. 117–27.
Quirke, Stephen (1992). Ancient Egyptian Religion. London: British Museum Press.
 Bakr, Mohamed I. & Brandl, Helmut (2010). "Bubastis and the
Temple of Bastet". In M. I. Bakr; H. Brandl & F. Kalloniatis
(eds.). Egyptian Antiquities from Kufur Nigm and Bubastis.
Cairo/Berlin. pp. 27–36. ISBN 978-3-00-033509-9
Bernhauer, Edith (2014). "Stela Fragment (of Bastet)" (http://pr
oject-min.de/home/english/museums.html). In M. I. Bakr; H.
Brandl; F. Kalloniatis (eds.). Egyptian Antiquities from the
Eastern Nile Delta. Cairo/Berlin. pp. 156–157. ISBN 978-3-00-
045318-2

External links
"All About Bast" (http://www.per-bast.org/) — Comprehensive Ancient Egyptian statue of
essay by S.D. Cass on per-Bast.org Bastet after becoming
"Temple to cat god found in Egypt" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ represented as a domestic
middle_east/8468803.stm), BBC News cat

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