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Bastet or Bast ( egy, bꜣstjt, cop, Ⲟⲩⲃⲁⲥⲧⲉ, Oubaste , Phoenician: 𐤀𐤁𐤎𐤕, romanized: ’bst, or 𐤁𐤎𐤕, romanized: bst) was a goddess of ancient Egyptian religion, worshipped as early as the Second Dynasty (2890 BCE). Her name also is rendered as B'sst, Baast, Ubaste, and Baset. In ancient Greek religion, she was known as Ailuros ( grc-koi, αἴλουρος "cat"). Bastet was worshipped in Bubastis in Lower Egypt, originally as a
lioness A lioness is a female lion. Lioness(es) may also refer to: Music * Lioness Records, a British record label * Lioness (band), a Canadian indie rock band ** ''Lioness'' (EP), their 2008 EP * ''Lioness'' (Sivert Høyem album), 2016 * ''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.Serpell, "Domestication and History of the Cat", p. 184.


Name

Bastet, 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 Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1, ...
, 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'' () may have moved to a position before the accented syllable, ''ꜣbst''.Te Velde, "Bastet", p. 165. By the first millennium, then, ''bꜣstt'' would have been something like ''*Ubaste'' (< ''*Ubastat'') in Egyptian speech, later becoming Coptic ''Oubaste''. What the name of the goddess means remains uncertain. Names of ancient Egyptian deities often were represented as 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. 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 useful only in deciphering the origin of the term, alabaster. James P. Allen instead derives the name as a nisba construction from a place name "Baset" (''bꜣst'') with the meaning "she of ''bꜣst''".


Role in ancient Egypt

Bastet was originally a fierce lioness warrior goddess of the sun worshipped throughout most of ancient Egyptian history, but later she became the cat goddess that is familiar today. She then was depicted as the daughter of Ra and
Isis Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...
, and the consort of Ptah, with whom she had a son
Maahes Maahes (also spelled in Greek: Mihos, Miysis, Mios, Maihes, or Mahes) (Greek: Μαχές, Μιχός, Μίυσις, Μίος, or Μάιχες) was an ancient Egyptian lion-headed god of war, whose name means "he who is true beside her". He was s ...
. As protector of Lower Egypt, she was seen as defender of the
king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen regnant, queen, which title is also given to the queen consort, consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contempora ...
, 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 The Eye of Ra or Eye of Re is a being in ancient Egyptian mythology that functions as a feminine counterpart to the sun god Ra and a violent force that subdues his enemies. The eye is an extension of Ra's power, equated with the disk of the sun, ...
. 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.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 Images of Bastet were often created from alabaster. The goddess was sometimes depicted holding a ceremonial sistrum in one hand and an
aegis The aegis ( ; grc, αἰγίς ''aigís''), as stated in the ''Iliad'', is a device carried by Athena and Zeus, variously interpreted as an animal skin or a shield and sometimes featuring the head of a Gorgon. There may be a connection with a d ...
in the other—the aegis usually resembling a collar or
gorget A gorget , from the French ' meaning throat, was a band of linen wrapped around a woman's neck and head in the medieval period or the lower part of a simple chaperon hood. The term later described a steel or leather collar to protect the ...
, embellished with a lioness head. Bastet was also depicted as the goddess of protection against contagious diseases and evil spirits.


History

Bastet 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.Te Velde, "Bastet", p. 164. Two thousand years later, during the
Third Intermediate Period of Egypt The Third Intermediate Period of ancient Egypt began with the death of Pharaoh Ramesses XI in 1077 BC, which ended the New Kingdom, and was eventually followed by the Late Period. Various points are offered as the beginning for the lat ...
(c. 1070–712 BC), Bastet 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 In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...
, 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. Dennis C. Turner and
Patrick Bateson Sir Paul Patrick Gordon Bateson, (31 March 1938 – 1 August 2017) was an English biologist with interests in ethology and phenotypic plasticity. Bateson was a professor at the University of Cambridge and served as president of the Zoologic ...
estimate that during the Twenty-second Dynasty (), Bastet worship changed from being a lioness deity into being predominantly a major cat deity. 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 In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Artemis (; grc-gre, Ἄρτεμις) is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, nature, vegetation, childbirth, care of children, and chastity. She was heavily identified with ...
.


Bubastis

Bastet was a local deity whose religious sect was centered in the city in the Nile Delta later named Bubastis. It lay near what is known today as Zagazig. 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. In the biblical
Book of Ezekiel The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Tanakh and one of the major prophetic books, following Isaiah and Jeremiah. According to the book itself, it records six visions of the prophet Ezekiel, exiled in Babylon, during ...
30:17, the town appears in the Hebrew form ''Pibeseth''.


Temple

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...
, an ancient Greek historian who traveled in Egypt in the fifth century BCE, describes Bastet's
temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...
at some length:Herodotus, Book 2, chapter 138. 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 The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (, which was originally derived from ar, خورنق ''Khurnaq'' "fortified village"), comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Constru ...
at Thebes. 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 Hathor ( egy, ḥwt-ḥr, lit=House of Horus, grc, Ἁθώρ , cop, ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky ...
, and Sakhmet, and came to be associated with sun gods such as Horus and Ra as well as the
Eye of Ra The Eye of Ra or Eye of Re is a being in ancient Egyptian mythology that functions as a feminine counterpart to the sun god Ra and a violent force that subdues his enemies. The eye is an extension of Ra's power, equated with the disk of the sun, ...
. Each of them had to be appeased by a specific set of rituals. 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. 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 Beni Hasan (also written as Bani Hasan, or also Beni-Hassan) ( ar, بني حسن) is an ancient Egyptian cemetery. It is located approximately to the south of modern-day Minya in the region known as Middle Egypt, the area between Asyut and Me ...
and
Saqqara Saqqara ( ar, سقارة, ), also spelled Sakkara or Saccara in English , is an Egyptian village in Giza Governorate, that contains ancient burial grounds of Egyptian royalty, serving as the necropolis for the ancient Egyptian capital, Memph ...
. In 1888, a farmer uncovered a burial site of many hundreds of thousands of cats in
Beni Hasan Beni Hasan (also written as Bani Hasan, or also Beni-Hassan) ( ar, بني حسن) is an ancient Egyptian cemetery. It is located approximately to the south of modern-day Minya in the region known as Middle Egypt, the area between Asyut and Me ...
.


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.Herodotus, Book 2, chapter 59.Herodotus, Book 2, chapter 137. 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.Herodotus, Book 2, chapter 60. This accords well with Egyptian sources that prescribe that lioness goddesses are to be appeased with the "feasts of drunkenness". A festival of Bastet was known to be celebrated during the New Kingdom at Bubastis. The block statue from the eighteenth dynasty () of Nefer-ka, the wab-priest of Sekhmet, 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.


In popular culture


See also

*
List of solar deities A solar deity is a deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength. Solar deities and Sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms. The following is a list of solar de ...


Notes


References

*
Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...
, 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. 176–179 . * *


Further reading

* * * * * *


External links


"All About Bast"
— Comprehensive essay by S.D. Cass on ''per-Bast.org''
"Temple to cat god found in Egypt"
BBC News {{DEFAULTSORT:Bastet (Mythology) Animal goddesses Anthropomorphic animals Cat folklore Egyptian goddesses Fertility goddesses Lion deities Love and lust deities Love and lust goddesses Lunar goddesses Mythological felines Mythological lions Solar goddesses Tutelary deities War goddesses Sekhmet