Bastet, << BAHS tet, >> also called Bast, is a cat goddess in the mythology of ancient Egypt. Bastet was originally worshipped by the people of the Nile Delta region, known as Lower Egypt. She was a protective warrior goddess associated with the sun. In this early period, Bastet was pictured as a woman with the head of a lioness. By about 1000 B.C., keeping cats as house pets became common. By this time, Bastet was usually represented as a woman with a cat’s head. Bastet became associated with fertility, love, and motherhood as her worship spread to other places in Egypt. She often carried a sistrum. The sistrum is a sacred rattle believed to keep evil away.
Bastet and other Egyptian gods shared many attributes in their early forms. Bastet was especially similar to Sekhmet, a lion goddess of war worshiped in Upper Egypt, the region to the south of the Nile Delta. Sometime around 1850 B.C., the character of these two goddesses began to diverge. Sekhmet became associated more with dangerous and sometimes vicious characteristics. Bastet was seen as more nurturing and protective. Sekhmet personified the fierce heat of the desert sun. Bastet became identified with more gentle, warming rays of the sun.
In the mid-400’s B.C., the Greek historian Herodotus visited the temple of Bastet in Bubastis, now called Tell Basta. He described a temple surrounded on three sides by an artificial lake. Herodotus claimed that 700,000 people made the annual pilgrimage to the temple. Women sang and danced. Both men and women appeased the fierce goddess with drunken feasting. Evidence that Bastet was worshiped widely is seen in the thousands of mummified cats unearthed at archaeological sites throughout Egypt.
