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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 BC). In ancient Greek religion, she was known as Ailuros ().
Bastet was worshipped in Bubastis in Lower Egypt, originally as a 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.
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".
As protector of Lower Egypt, she was seen as defender of the pharaoh, 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. 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 Upper Egypt who was dubbed "eye of the moon".Wilkinson, Richard H. (2003). The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. p. 176
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 in the other—the aegis usually resembling a collar or gorget, embellished with a lioness head.
Bastet was also depicted as the Tutelary deity against contagious diseases and .
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 . Cats of royalty were, in some instances, known to be dressed in golden jewelry and allowed to eat from the plates of their owners. 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 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.
Bastet was depicted by Egyptians with the head of a cat and the slender body of a woman. Sometimes, Bastet was venerated as just a cat head. 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 .
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. These lakes were typical components of temples devoted to a number of lioness goddesses (Bastet, Mut, Tefnut, Hathor, Sekhmet) who are said to represent one original goddess and who came to be associated with sun gods such as Horus and Ra, as well as the Eye of Ra. Each of these goddesses had to be appeased by a specific set of rituals. One myth relates that a lioness, fiery and wrathful, was cooled down by the water of the lake and thus was transformed into a gentle cat, settling down in the temple.
At the Bubastis temple, large numbers of cats were found to have been Mummy 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 in Egypt 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 afford the expense would have the cat embalmed or buried in pet cemeteries, 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.
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