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
The Second Dynasty of ancient Egypt (or Dynasty II, c. 2890 – c. 2686 BC) is the latter of the two dynasties of the Egyptian Archaic Period, when the seat of government was centred at Thinis. It is most known for its last ruler, K ...
(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
Bubastis ( Bohairic Coptic: ''Poubasti''; Greek: ''Boubastis'' or ''Boubastos''), also known in Arabic as Tell-Basta or in Egyptian as Per-Bast, was an ancient Egyptian city. Bubastis is often identified with the biblical ''Pi-Beseth'' ( h ...
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
In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet ( or Sachmis (), also spelled Sakhmet, Sekhet, Sakhet among other spellings, cop, Ⲥⲁⲭⲙⲓ, Sakhmi), is a warrior goddess as well as goddess of healing. She is depicted as a lioness.
Sekhmet is a solar de ...
. Eventually Bastet and Sekhmet were characterized as two aspects of the same goddess, with
Sekhmet
In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet ( or Sachmis (), also spelled Sakhmet, Sekhet, Sakhet among other spellings, cop, Ⲥⲁⲭⲙⲓ, Sakhmi), is a warrior goddess as well as goddess of healing. She is depicted as a lioness.
Sekhmet is a solar de ...
representing the powerful warrior and protector aspect and Bastet, who increasingly was depicted as a
cat
The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...
, 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
This is a partial list of Egyptologists. An Egyptologist is any archaeologist, historian, linguist, or art historian who specializes in Egyptology, the scientific study of Ancient Egypt and its antiquities. Demotists are Egyptologists who special ...
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
James Peter Allen (born 1945) is an American Egyptologist, specializing in language and religion. He was curator of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1990 to 2006. In 2007, he became the Charles Edwin Wilbour Professor of Egypt ...
vocalizes the original form of the name as ''buʔístit'' or ''buʔístiat'', with ʔ representing a
glottal stop.
In
Middle Egyptian
The Egyptian language or Ancient Egyptian ( ) is a dead Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts which were made accessible to the modern world following the deciphe ...
writing, the second ''t'' marks a feminine ending but usually was not pronounced, and the
aleph ''ꜣ'' (
![Latin small letter egyptological Alef](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Latin_small_letter_egyptological_Alef.svg)
) 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''.
![Bastet Hieroglyph Amulet MET M 859](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Bastet_Hieroglyph_Amulet_MET_M_859.jpg)
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
Stephen Quirke is an Egyptologist. He is the current Edwards Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology at University College London. He has worked at the British Museum (1989–1998) and since 1999 at the Petrie Museum in London. He has publi ...
(''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
Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving, and is processed for plaster powder. Archaeologists and the stone processing industry use the word differently from geologists. The former use it in a wider sense that include ...
'' 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
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...
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
Ptah ( egy, ptḥ, reconstructed ; grc, Φθά; cop, ⲡⲧⲁϩ; Phoenician: 𐤐𐤕𐤇, romanized: ptḥ) is an ancient Egyptian deity, a creator god and patron deity of craftsmen and architects. In the triad of Memphis, he is the hu ...
, 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 se ...
.
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, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
, 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
Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving, and is processed for plaster powder. Archaeologists and the stone processing industry use the word differently from geologists. The former use it in a wider sense that include ...
. 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 th ...
, 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 latt ...
(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, 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
Cats were represented in social and religious practices of ancient Egypt for more than 3,000 years. Several ancient Egyptian deities were depicted and sculptured with cat-like heads such as Mafdet, Bastet and Sekhmet, representing justice, fert ...
were highly revered, partly due to their ability to combat
vermin
Vermin ( colloquially varmint(s) or varmit(s)) are pests or nuisance animals that spread diseases or destroy crops or livestock. Since the term is defined in relation to human activities, which species are included vary by region and enterp ...
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 Zoologi ...
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 wit ...
.
Bubastis
Bastet was a local deity whose religious sect was centered in the city in the
Nile Delta later named
Bubastis
Bubastis ( Bohairic Coptic: ''Poubasti''; Greek: ''Boubastis'' or ''Boubastos''), also known in Arabic as Tell-Basta or in Egyptian as Per-Bast, was an ancient Egyptian city. Bubastis is often identified with the biblical ''Pi-Beseth'' ( h ...
. It lay near what is known today as
Zagazig
Zagazig ( ar, الزقازيق ' , rural: ) is a city in Lower Egypt. Situated in the eastern part of the Nile delta, it is the capital of the governorate of Sharqia.
It is located on the Muweis Canal and is a hub of the corn and cotton ...
.
The town, known in
Egyptian
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
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
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
, 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
Mut, also known as Maut and Mout, was a mother goddess worshipped in ancient Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush in present-day North Sudan. In Meroitic, her name was pronounced mata): 𐦨𐦴. Her name means ''mother'' in the ancient Egyptian l ...
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. Constr ...
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
Mut, also known as Maut and Mout, was a mother goddess worshipped in ancient Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush in present-day North Sudan. In Meroitic, her name was pronounced mata): 𐦨𐦴. Her name means ''mother'' in the ancient Egyptian l ...
, Tefnut
Tefnut ( egy, ; cop, ⲧϥⲏⲛⲉ ) is a deity of moisture, moist air, dew and rain in Ancient Egyptian religion.The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, George Hart She is the sister and consort of the air god Shu and the ...
, 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 sk ...
, and Sakhmet
In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet ( or Sachmis (), also spelled Sakhmet, Sekhet, Sakhet among other spellings, cop, Ⲥⲁⲭⲙⲓ, Sakhmi), is a warrior goddess as well as goddess of healing. She is depicted as a lioness.
Sekhmet is a solar de ...
, 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
Bubastis ( Bohairic Coptic: ''Poubasti''; Greek: ''Boubastis'' or ''Boubastos''), also known in Arabic as Tell-Basta or in Egyptian as Per-Bast, was an ancient Egyptian city. Bubastis is often identified with the biblical ''Pi-Beseth'' ( h ...
temple, some cats were found to have been mummified
A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...
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 Mem ...
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, Memphis ...
. 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 Mem ...
.
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
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this ene ...
Notes
References
* Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
, 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