thumb|Bastet in her earlier form of a lioness-headed woman depicted the same or very similar to [[Sekhmet]]

Bastet or Bast (), also known as Ubasti or Bubastis, is a goddess of ancient Egyptian religion, possibly of Nubian origin, worshipped as early as the Second Dynasty (2890 BCE). In ancient Greek religion, she was known as Ailuros ().

Bastet was worshipped in Bubastis in Lower Egypt, originally as a lioness goddess, a role shared by other deities such as Sekhmet. 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.

Name

Bastet, which is the form of the name that is most commonly adopted by Egyptologists today because of its use in later dynasties, is a modern convention offering one possible reconstruction. In early Egyptian hieroglyphs, her name appears to have been bꜣstt. James Peter Allen vocalizes the original form of the name as buʔístit or buʔístiat, with ʔ representing a glottal stop. In Middle Egyptian writing, the second t marks a feminine ending but usually was not pronounced, and the aleph ꜣ (10px) may have moved to a position before the accented syllable, ꜣbst. By the first millennium, then, bꜣstt would have been something like *Ubaste (< *Ubastat) in Egyptian speech, later becoming Coptic Oubaste. <small>romanized:</small> ’bst, or 𐤁𐤎𐤕, <small>romanized:</small> bst.

thumb|left|upright|Wadjet-Bastet, with a lioness head, the solar disk, and the cobra that represents [[Wadjet]]

What the name of the goddess means remains uncertain. 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. She was then depicted as the daughter of Ra and Isis, and the consort of Ptah, with whom she had a son, Maahes. She has been depicted as fighting the evil snake named Apep, an enemy of Ra. In addition to her solar connections, she was also related to Wadjet, one of the oldest Egyptian goddesses from the Southern Delta who was dubbed "eye of the moon".

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

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.

History

thumb|235x235px|Statue of Bastet holding a [[sistrum]]

Her name was originally shorter, transliterated as Bast in English. Bast first appears in the third millennium BCE, where she is depicted as either a fierce lioness or a woman with the head of a lioness. Two thousand years later, during the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt (–712 BCE), Bast began to be depicted as a domestic cat or a cat-headed woman. 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 and rats which threatened key food supplies, as well as snakes—especially cobras. Cats of royalty were, in some instances, known to be dressed in golden jewelry and allowed to eat from the same plate as other members of the household. Dennis C. Turner and Patrick Bateson estimate that during the Twenty-second Dynasty (), Bastet changed from being a lioness deity into being predominantly a major cat deity. The town, known in Egyptian as pr-bꜣstt (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.

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. which demonstrates the great prevalence of the cult of Bastet. Extensive burials of cat remains have been found not only at Bubastis but also at Saqqara, including the temple complex known as the Bubasteum. In 1888, a farmer uncovered a burial site of many hundreds of thousands of cats in Beni Hasan. 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. This accords well with Egyptian sources which prescribe that lioness goddesses are to be appeased with the "feasts of drunkenness". 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.

See also

  • Gayer-Anderson cat
  • List of solar deities

Notes

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", in: M. I. Bakr, H. Brandl, Faye Kalloniatis (eds.): Egyptian Antiquities from Kufur Nigm and Bubastis. Berlin 2010, pp.&nbsp;176–179 .

Further reading

  • "All About Bast" — Comprehensive essay by S.D. Cass on per-Bast.org
  • "Temple to cat god found in Egypt", BBC News