Bastet (redirected from Bast (mythology))

Bastet

 or Bast or Ubasti

Bastet, cat-headed goddess of Bubastis, statuette, 22nd–25th dynasty; in the British Museum

(credit: Reproduced by courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum)

In Egyptian religion, a goddess worshiped first as a lioness and later as a cat. Her nature changed after the domestication of the cat c. 1500 BC. She had cults at Bubastis in the Nile delta and at Memphis. In the Late and Ptolemaic periods, large cemeteries of mummified cats were created at both sites, and thousands of bronze statuettes of the goddess were deposited as votive offerings. Bastet is represented as a lioness or a woman with a cat's head, usually holding a bag, a breastplate, and a sistrum (wire rattle). The Romans carried her cult to Italy.