In Egyptian mythology, Bast is a solar deity and a goddess of fertility and protector of pregnant women. Bast was represented as early as the Second Dynasty of the Old Kingdom as a woman with a feline head. Domestic cat-headed Bast, as she appears in the Middle Kingdom, is a content goddess; lioness-headed Bast is potentially dangerous. The addition of the "t" on the end of "Bas" indicates that she is a female goddess. Adding the "et" adds emphasis on an already feminine word.

Bast is strongly associated with the goddesses Sekhmet, Pakhet, Hathor, and Mut. Her cult was centered in Bubastis. After the period of Hellenistic civilization , Bast became a lunar deity whom the Greeks associated with their Artemis. The Greeks also considered her the daughter of Isis and Osiris and sister of Horus (who was associated with Apollo and thus by their cosmology had to be Bast's brother). In Bubastis, her son is the lion-god Maahes. In the Late Period, mummified cats were offered to her.

Other names

• Bast
• Ubasti
• Ba-en-Aset
• Ailuros (simply Greek for "cat")

Her name means “The Devouring Lady”. Some of the many titles of Bast were “Mistress of the Sistrum,” “Lady of Flame,” “Perfumed Protector,” “Eye of Ra,” “The Feline One of Women,” and “She of the Bast” (ointment jar). The worship of Bast has been dated to at least the Second Dynasty (around 2890-2686 BCE), before the building of the great pyramids. Her name has existed for nearly five millennia, which makes “Bast” one of the oldest Egyptian gods in existence.

Probably the most famous Egyptian goddess after Isis, Bast was a very popular goddess of joy, music, sensuality, dance, warmth, and protection. Though not traditionally associated with the Moon by the Egyptians, she would eventually become associated with the lunar goddess Artemis by the Greeks. Like most Egyptian goddesses, she was primarily a solar deity who defended the pharaoh and the people from disease and destruction. The Egyptians also thought that Bast protected against snakes and illness. In her city of Bubastis, Bast was worshipped in a triad with Tem and Maahes (Mihos). Other gods who are ascribed as her sons include Anubis, Horus of the Ointments, and Nefertem. She was also associated with numerous female goddesses, including: Hathor, Sekhmet, Mut, and Nit. In the Middle Kingdom, Bast and Isis were the goddesses who protected the Heliopolis Nome.

Bast was pictured as a cat or as a woman with the head of a cat, often dressed in green. Sometimes she was shown holding a sistrum, the symbol of music. Occasionally Bast was pictured as a lioness or as a desert wildcat, killing poisonous snakes with her claws. In some depictions Bast can be seen as a cat with the mask of a lioness in her hand, symbolizing her hidden ferociousness. She was sometimes depicted with kittens, which symbolized her role as a nurturing fertility deity. Mythologist Robert Briffault remarks on the cat’s great adaptivity to motherhood and her ability to love substitute kittens equally with her own. Typically cats who have lost a kitten will willingly adopt kittens of another litter. During the 2nd century C.E. Plutarch wrote, somewhat mysteriously, that the Egyptian Cat gives birth first to one kitten, then two, until the number seven is reached. He points out that this makes a total of twenty-eight, the same as the days of the lunar month.

The ancient Egyptians revered cats more than any culture in history - cats usually held a higher position in the household than most humans. They wore gold and jewels and were allowed to eat from the same plates as their owners. Cats were by far the most popular pet in Egypt - nearly every household had at least one. “Little Cat” and “Pussy Cat” became terms of endearment, specific to young girls. To be told one had the eyes of a cat was considered a great compliment. A woman who wanted children would wear an amulet of a cat (representing Bast) with kittens. The number of kittens indicated the number of children she wished to have. To have “Bast” as part of a person's name became highly common in the Late Period. Some pharaohs even took Bast’s name in their king-names.

Great and joyful festivals were periodically celebrated in her city of Per-Bast (Bubastis) - the “House of Bast.” The Greek historian Herodotus tells us that her temple was one of the most beautiful in Egypt, and that Bast’s huge annual festival attracted an estimated more than 700,000 people each year. Herodotus said that “Other temples are greater and more costly, but none more pleasing to the eye than this.” During the “Procession of Bast” thousands of worshippers journeyed to the city on Nile barges, accompanied by drums and flutes, and everything was a pretext for pleasantry and masquerade. Lion hunts were forbidden during this time. On the appointed day a splendid procession wound through the town and festivities followed during which, it seems, more wine was drunk than during all the rest of the year.

Herodotus writes much about Bast and the cats of Egypt. Though the events he speaks of are of interest to historians, one should always bear in mind that Herodotus was the equivalent of an ancient tourist, often writing down things that he heard whether or not they were true.

In particular, Herodotus made notes about the reverence of cats in Egypt; he noted that when a house caught fire, people were more concerned to save their cats than to put the fire out.

Other fantastic stories tell of how the ancient Persians exploited the Egyptians’ worship of cats by using them in an attack. They tied cats to their shields, then gathered up hundreds of cats and began to lob them off of a high wall to their deaths. The Egyptians couldn’t stand to see their sacred animals treated so sacrilegiously and immediately surrendered.

When a pet cat died, the entire family shaved their eyebrows in mourning, and the cat was mummified and buried in a sacred temple dedicated to Bast. Cats lived in her temples, and were worshipped as demi-gods, the “Children of Bast.” Throughout Egypt thousands of statues and images of Bast were set up in the temples by priests so worshippers could place offerings of fish, flowers, and milk before them. Cats were so highly respected that to kill one, even by accident, was punishable by death. (One Roman visitor to Bubastis who unwisely killed a cat was lynched by the horrified citizens.) A similar twist of fate appears in H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Cats of Ulthar".

External link

• Encyclopedia Mythica: Bast
• Per-Bast.org: The Domain of Bast