Bast/Bastet
So many photocopies and PDFs... I'm so much better at collecting them than I am at reading them, or posting about them. In this posting I want to gather together a whole lot of notes about the Egyptian goddess Bast or Bastet; when I've finished rummaging through all the research I've accumulated, I'll post again with a summary.
Sethe, Kurt. Urgeschichte und älteste Religion der Ägypter, Leipzig, Deutsche morgenländische Gesellschaft, 1930 (reprinted as Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 18(4) 1966)
Over time, goddess which you might expect to be harmless or even timid became fierce when they were associated with Sekhmet, such as the hare-goddess Wenenut and a goose-goddess, Seret (known from one OK inscription).
Raffaele, Francesco. An unpublished Early Dynastic stone vessel fragment with incised inscription naming the goddess Bastet. Cahiers Caribéens d'Egyptologie , 7-8, 2005.
Bast was a "lion goddess", only associated with the domestic cat in the Late Period.
Her name becomes common during the Second and Third Dynasties, but doesn't appear earlier.
Bast's name is properly Wbastit; the initial "u" sound is never written, but can be deduced from Greek transliterations of the name.
The derivation of Bast's name isn't certain - it could mean "she of the ointment jar" (bas) or "she of the town of Bubastis".
On this vessel, Bast's name is written with a determinative showing an enthroned, lion-headed goddess, hold an ankh and a was-sceptre. Later, especially when Bast became the tutelary deity of the 22nd Dynasty, she would sometimes be represented with a cat's head and holding a lion mask.
In the late Old Kingdom, Bast was the protectress of king and queens in Lower Egypt. "She was also a sky goddess, in conjunction with Hathor; in this role as lioness and cow respectively, they were related to the sun god who was represented as a lion or a bull. Bastet was also regarded as the Lower Egyptian royal partner, the Upper Egyptian counterpart being Hathor (or Nekhbet); she was linked with Shesmetet as well and with the shesmet-girdle."
"Bastet's role is often linked to the king(ship), although this is explicit only since the IVth Dynasty." For example, a seal of the king Shepseskaf bears the title "Beloved by Hathor-Bastet".
"In late Old Kingdom (Pepi I and II) Pyramid Texts, Bastet is also cited as the 'king's mother' and identified with the king's heart."
Review by Henry George Fischer of Tell Basta by Labib Habachi. American Journal of Archaeology 62(3) July 1958, pp. 330-333."The representation of Bastet on the exterior lintel of the enclosure wall [of Pepy I's temple at Tell Basta" does not seem catheaded (p. 14; cf. p. 117) but lion-headed, as in a Fifth Dynasty relief where she is identified with Sakhmet (Borchardt, Grabd. Konigs Ne-user-re', fig. 72), or a Twelfth Dynasty relief where she is "Mistress of Ashru" (Petrie, Koptos, pl. 10)."
Spalinger, Anthony J. "Social and Religious Implications of the New Military System". in War in Ancient Egypt: the New Kingdom. Malden, MA; Oxford, Blackwell, 2005.Spalinger describes (around Dynasty XVIII) an increasing connection between war and pharoah, and pharoah and Amun, and "other key deities": "The earlier double-sided concept of Pharoah remained. The king if beneficial when connected to the cat goddess Bastet, or violently aggressive against his enemies when he puts on the position of the lion goddess Sekhmet. This duality, also known in Dynasty XII, is repeated in scenes and texts of the New Kingdom relating to the king in battle." The king was friendly towards friendly lands, but showed bau, "ferocious and powerful anger" to enemy and rebel lands. "... the difference between love, connected to Bastet, and fear, linked to Sekhmet, remained a basic part of the worldview of the Egyptians".
Te Velde, H. "The Cat as sacred animal of the goddess Mut." In M. Heerma van Voss et al (eds). Studies in Egyptian Religion. Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1982."In the last millennium BC the goddess Bastet is usually represented as a cat or a woman with the head of a cat holding an aegis with a lion's head, a sistrum and sometimes a little basket supposed to contain a cat or kittens. Bastet can also be depicted though with a lion's head, and in earlier times this was always the case." There's no evidence of Bast's association with the cat before Dynasty XXII, around 1000 BCE, during the Third Intermediate Period, when Libyan kings had their capitals in Tanis and Bubastis.)
Pinch, Geraldine. Egyptian Mythology: a guide to the gods, goddesses, and traditions of ancient Egypt. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.Bast could be called the Eye of Ra or the Eye of Atum, the consort or daughter of Atum-Ra (and mother by him of Mahes). "From the Pyramid Texts onward, Bastet has a double aspect of nurturing mother and terrifying avenger." The "slaughterers of Bastet" caused disease and disaster. She was identified with the "Nubian cat", a form of the Distant Goddess who flees into the desert and is brought back by Thoth or Shu. Pinch suggests that Tabubu, daughter of a priestess of Bastet in a story about Prince Setna, is the avenging goddess herself. (Scott (below) notes that this story dates to "the beginning of the Christian era".)
"The kings of the Twenty-Second Dynasty were of Libyan descent, but they seem to have completely adopted Egyptian religion. They favored the cult of the feline goddess Bastet and rebuilt part of her temple at Bubastis." (30)
"According to a temple ritual, the body of Osiris was guarded by four lion goddesses: Wadjyt, Sekhmet, Bastet, and Shesmetet." (134)
Odd little note I found which I'd made from Frankfort's Kingship and the Gods:"In the funerary temple of Neuserre, Bastet appears as a lioness; in that of Sahure, the head is lost; but the titles of the goddess are the same as in the other relief. In later times, when the goddess appears as a cat, she often carries a lion mask in one hand.
Arnold, Dorothea. An Egyptian Bestiary. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series 52(4) spring, 1995, pp. 1+7-64. "... it was the general concept of the lioness deity that was important, not the many names under which she appeared. This often makes it difficult to distinguish iconographically between the various lioness deities in Egyptian art... The sistrum was used in performances that were believed to transform the dangerous Sakhmet into Bastet, the cat goddess, her benign counterpart."
te Velde, H. Some Remarks on the Structure of Egyptian Divine Triads. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 57, August 1971, pp 80-86. Atum, Bastet, and their son Horhekenu formed a triad at Bubastis.
"Duplication of a goddess or pairs of goddesses are often found in Egyptian religion: the two Ma'at goddesses, the two Meret goddesses, the two mistresses Nekhbet and Uto [ie Wadjet], the two sisters Isis and Nephthys, 'Anat and Astarte. Hathor is called angry as Sakhmet and gay as Bastet, while in the list of fifty-six goddesses at Karnak Bastet and Uto form a pair, as do Satis and Anukis and Iunyt and Tenenet. One may also name Mut and Sakhmet at Karnak, and Nebtu and Menhyt at Esna who according to Sauneron 'ne sont pas deux déesses, mais deux fonctions différentes d'une déesse'. In all these cases we have little or no indication as to the nature of the division."
Scott, Nora E. The Cat of Bastet. Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin ns 17(1) summer 1958, pp 1-7.Available online: http://www.metmuseum.org/publications/bulletins/1/pdf/3258805.pdf.bannered.pdf
"It has also been suggested, because she found such favor with the Libyan kings of the XXII Dynasty, that the goddess herself was of Libyan origin."
"[Bubastis] increased in size until the XXII Dynasty, when it reached the peak of its power, and was still one of the great Egyptian cities in the sixth century B.C. when the prophet Ezekiel foretold that "the young men of Aven [Heliopolis] and Pi-Beseth [Per-Bastet] shall fall by the sword and these shall go into captivity." But a hundred years later Herodotus was writing his famous account of the beautiful temple of Bastet at Bubastis and the great festival of the goddess held there every year. The city did not fall into decay until well into the Roman period." ("... it is probable that it was laid waste in some Roman battle, so that the prophet's gloomy forebodings were at last realized.") Large cat cemeteries started to appear in Dynasty XXII, for sacred cats and cats with well-off owners, and possibly for sacrificed cats.
On Bastet's fiercer side: "Se'n-Wosret III, for example, enjoins, "Adore the king... he is Bastet, protecting the Two Lands." Amun-hotep II writes, "His Majesty proceeded to Retenu [Palestine-Syria] on his first victorious campaign, his face terrible like that of Bastet"; and Sethy I describes himself as "valiant in the very heart of the fray, a Bastet terrible in combat."
"... all classes of the population wore little amulets in the form of or engraved with figures of Bastet's cat to guard them against misfortune and to ensure fertility."
"Bastet herself was becoming absorbed into the all-embracing mother goddess Isis..."
Schorsch, Deborah and James H. Frantza. A Tale of Two Kitties. Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, winter 1997/1998, pp 16-29.
Available online:
http://www.metmuseum.org/publications/bulletins/1/pdf/3258799.pdf.bannered.pdf
You always get Herodotus' story of how the Egyptians would leave their house to burn while they saved the cats, but the odd detail is that they're not trying to rescue them from inside the house, but trying to stop cats from flinging themselves into the fire. wtf?
The authors suggest an explanation for the switch from fierce lioness to docile cat goddess: "Cats became house pets in the Middle Kingdom, and in this role were henceforth associated with the goddess Bastet, originally a ferocious lioness who came to be regarded as a benign protector of domesticity and fertility."
"...in the first millennium B.C. an act of popular piety was to place an animal image in a catacomb established at a cult center of that deity... a close connection between the veneration of sacred animals and the worship of the king has been proposed, with the suggestion that these offerings were obligatory for religious officials and soldiers connected with certain royal cults." The practice was common in the Ptolemaic period and continued until the second century CE; there are "feline catacombs" all over Egypt. Horribly, rather than being beloved pets, the cats were killed for the purpose.
Cartwright, Harry W. The Iconography of Certain Egyptian Divinities as Illustrated by the Collections in Haskell Oriental Museum. The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 45(3) April 1929 pp. 179-196."Here as often she has nothing whatever on her head. The close-fitting garment which she wears is quite distinctive." The museum's statue holds a sistrum in its right hand, an aegis in its left, and has a basket slung over her left arm.
The Haskell Oriental Museum became the modern Oriental Institute, where it was part of the "Life of Meresamun" exhibition. It's from the Late Period, the 26th Dynasty, and may have been a votive offering.
Eggler, Jürg and Eric Gubel. "Bastet/Sekhmet (Levant, Phoenician colonies)". in Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East (electronic pre-publication)Available online:
http://www.religionswissenschaft.uzh.ch/idd/prepublications/e_idd_bastet_sekhmet_levant_phoenician_colonies.pdf
http://www.religionswissenschaft.uzh.ch/idd/prepublications/e_idd_illustrations_bastet_sekhmet_levant_phoenician_colonies.pdf
This is a thorough catalogue of the iconography of Bastet (and Sekhmet; as it points out, it's not always possible to tell them apart). There are numerous appearances by Bastet and/or Sekhmet outside Egypt, which surprised me - I knew Bastet was popular with the Romans, for example, but not that she turns up in the Levant and Mesopotamia.
Just a couple of things which caught my interest:
A Saite statue found at Amrit in Syria is labelled "from the temple of Bastet, Mistress of Ankh-Tawy"; this indicates she was identified with Astarte at Memphis. (tbh I'm not sure why!) There's also a bone plaque from Ephesus which possibly shows Astarte holding an aegis. The authors suggest that the Phoenicians identified Astarte with Sekhmet, and therefore also identified Astarte with Bastet.
An amulet of Bastet from Lachish depicts the goddess holding the wadjet-eye, and there are other examples.
Ambers, Janet et al. A new look at an old cat: a technical investigation of the Gayer-Anderson cat. British Museum Technical Research Bulletin 2 2008.
Available online:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/online_journals/technical_research_bulletin/trb_volume_2.aspx
"The dedication of votive statuettes of deities in massive numbers became a widespread phenomenon in Egypt only in the late first millennium BC..." "Votive figurines of Bastet always represent her as a cat, or cat-headed woman, not as a lioness." (Are there votive figurines of Sekhmet, I wonder?) "The tufts of hair found inside cats' ears have been rendered stylistically, to echo the hieroglyphic sign for Maat..." The Gayer-Anderson Cat has a wadjet eye as a amulet.
And some links:
Bastet, the cat - a report from excavations at Tel Basta, February 2009
Aegis of Sekhmet or Bastet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
ETA: lots of stuff in the Bastet tag in my Tumblr!
__
Ambers, Janet et al. A new look at an old cat: a technical investigation of the Gayer-Anderson cat. British Museum Technical Research Bulletin 2 2008.
Arnold, Dorothea. An Egyptian Bestiary. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series 52(4) spring, 1995), pp. 1+7-64.
Cartwright, Harry W. The Iconography of Certain Egyptian Divinities as Illustrated by the Collections in Haskell Oriental Museum. The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 45(3) April 1929 pp. 179-196.
Review by Henry George Fischer of Tell Basta by Labib Habachi. American Journal of Archaeology 62(3) July 1958, pp. 330-333.
Pinch, Geraldine. Egyptian Mythology: a guide to the gods, goddesses, and traditions of ancient Egypt. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Raffaele, Francesco. An unpublished Early Dynastic stone vessel fragment with incised inscription naming the goddess Bastet. Cahiers Caribéens d'Egyptologie , 7-8, 2005.
Schorsch, Deborah and James H. Frantza. A Tale of Two Kitties. Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, winter 1997/1998, pp 16-29.
Scott, Nora E. The Cat of Bastet. Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin ns 17(1) summer 1958, pp 1-7.
Spalinger, Anthony J. "Social and Religious Implications of the New Military System". in War in Ancient Egypt: the New Kingdom. Malden, MA; Oxford, Blackwell, 2005.
Te Velde, H. "The Cat as sacred animal of the goddess Mut." In M. Heerma van Voss et al (eds). Studies in Egyptian Religion. Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1982.
- Some Remarks on the Structure of Egyptian Divine Triads. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 57, August 1971, pp 80-86.
Over time, goddess which you might expect to be harmless or even timid became fierce when they were associated with Sekhmet, such as the hare-goddess Wenenut and a goose-goddess, Seret (known from one OK inscription).
Bast was a "lion goddess", only associated with the domestic cat in the Late Period.
Her name becomes common during the Second and Third Dynasties, but doesn't appear earlier.
Bast's name is properly Wbastit; the initial "u" sound is never written, but can be deduced from Greek transliterations of the name.
The derivation of Bast's name isn't certain - it could mean "she of the ointment jar" (bas) or "she of the town of Bubastis".
On this vessel, Bast's name is written with a determinative showing an enthroned, lion-headed goddess, hold an ankh and a was-sceptre. Later, especially when Bast became the tutelary deity of the 22nd Dynasty, she would sometimes be represented with a cat's head and holding a lion mask.
In the late Old Kingdom, Bast was the protectress of king and queens in Lower Egypt. "She was also a sky goddess, in conjunction with Hathor; in this role as lioness and cow respectively, they were related to the sun god who was represented as a lion or a bull. Bastet was also regarded as the Lower Egyptian royal partner, the Upper Egyptian counterpart being Hathor (or Nekhbet); she was linked with Shesmetet as well and with the shesmet-girdle."
"Bastet's role is often linked to the king(ship), although this is explicit only since the IVth Dynasty." For example, a seal of the king Shepseskaf bears the title "Beloved by Hathor-Bastet".
"In late Old Kingdom (Pepi I and II) Pyramid Texts, Bastet is also cited as the 'king's mother' and identified with the king's heart."
"The kings of the Twenty-Second Dynasty were of Libyan descent, but they seem to have completely adopted Egyptian religion. They favored the cult of the feline goddess Bastet and rebuilt part of her temple at Bubastis." (30)
"According to a temple ritual, the body of Osiris was guarded by four lion goddesses: Wadjyt, Sekhmet, Bastet, and Shesmetet." (134)
"Duplication of a goddess or pairs of goddesses are often found in Egyptian religion: the two Ma'at goddesses, the two Meret goddesses, the two mistresses Nekhbet and Uto [ie Wadjet], the two sisters Isis and Nephthys, 'Anat and Astarte. Hathor is called angry as Sakhmet and gay as Bastet, while in the list of fifty-six goddesses at Karnak Bastet and Uto form a pair, as do Satis and Anukis and Iunyt and Tenenet. One may also name Mut and Sakhmet at Karnak, and Nebtu and Menhyt at Esna who according to Sauneron 'ne sont pas deux déesses, mais deux fonctions différentes d'une déesse'. In all these cases we have little or no indication as to the nature of the division."
"It has also been suggested, because she found such favor with the Libyan kings of the XXII Dynasty, that the goddess herself was of Libyan origin."
"[Bubastis] increased in size until the XXII Dynasty, when it reached the peak of its power, and was still one of the great Egyptian cities in the sixth century B.C. when the prophet Ezekiel foretold that "the young men of Aven [Heliopolis] and Pi-Beseth [Per-Bastet] shall fall by the sword and these shall go into captivity." But a hundred years later Herodotus was writing his famous account of the beautiful temple of Bastet at Bubastis and the great festival of the goddess held there every year. The city did not fall into decay until well into the Roman period." ("... it is probable that it was laid waste in some Roman battle, so that the prophet's gloomy forebodings were at last realized.") Large cat cemeteries started to appear in Dynasty XXII, for sacred cats and cats with well-off owners, and possibly for sacrificed cats.
On Bastet's fiercer side: "Se'n-Wosret III, for example, enjoins, "Adore the king... he is Bastet, protecting the Two Lands." Amun-hotep II writes, "His Majesty proceeded to Retenu [Palestine-Syria] on his first victorious campaign, his face terrible like that of Bastet"; and Sethy I describes himself as "valiant in the very heart of the fray, a Bastet terrible in combat."
"... all classes of the population wore little amulets in the form of or engraved with figures of Bastet's cat to guard them against misfortune and to ensure fertility."
"Bastet herself was becoming absorbed into the all-embracing mother goddess Isis..."
Available online:
http://www.metmuseum.org/publications/bulletins/1/pdf/3258799.pdf.bannered.pdf
You always get Herodotus' story of how the Egyptians would leave their house to burn while they saved the cats, but the odd detail is that they're not trying to rescue them from inside the house, but trying to stop cats from flinging themselves into the fire. wtf?
The authors suggest an explanation for the switch from fierce lioness to docile cat goddess: "Cats became house pets in the Middle Kingdom, and in this role were henceforth associated with the goddess Bastet, originally a ferocious lioness who came to be regarded as a benign protector of domesticity and fertility."
"...in the first millennium B.C. an act of popular piety was to place an animal image in a catacomb established at a cult center of that deity... a close connection between the veneration of sacred animals and the worship of the king has been proposed, with the suggestion that these offerings were obligatory for religious officials and soldiers connected with certain royal cults." The practice was common in the Ptolemaic period and continued until the second century CE; there are "feline catacombs" all over Egypt. Horribly, rather than being beloved pets, the cats were killed for the purpose.
The Haskell Oriental Museum became the modern Oriental Institute, where it was part of the "Life of Meresamun" exhibition. It's from the Late Period, the 26th Dynasty, and may have been a votive offering.
http://www.religionswissenschaft.uzh.ch/idd/prepublications/e_idd_bastet_sekhmet_levant_phoenician_colonies.pdf
http://www.religionswissenschaft.uzh.ch/idd/prepublications/e_idd_illustrations_bastet_sekhmet_levant_phoenician_colonies.pdf
This is a thorough catalogue of the iconography of Bastet (and Sekhmet; as it points out, it's not always possible to tell them apart). There are numerous appearances by Bastet and/or Sekhmet outside Egypt, which surprised me - I knew Bastet was popular with the Romans, for example, but not that she turns up in the Levant and Mesopotamia.
Just a couple of things which caught my interest:
A Saite statue found at Amrit in Syria is labelled "from the temple of Bastet, Mistress of Ankh-Tawy"; this indicates she was identified with Astarte at Memphis. (tbh I'm not sure why!) There's also a bone plaque from Ephesus which possibly shows Astarte holding an aegis. The authors suggest that the Phoenicians identified Astarte with Sekhmet, and therefore also identified Astarte with Bastet.
An amulet of Bastet from Lachish depicts the goddess holding the wadjet-eye, and there are other examples.
Available online:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/online_journals/technical_research_bulletin/trb_volume_2.aspx
"The dedication of votive statuettes of deities in massive numbers became a widespread phenomenon in Egypt only in the late first millennium BC..." "Votive figurines of Bastet always represent her as a cat, or cat-headed woman, not as a lioness." (Are there votive figurines of Sekhmet, I wonder?) "The tufts of hair found inside cats' ears have been rendered stylistically, to echo the hieroglyphic sign for Maat..." The Gayer-Anderson Cat has a wadjet eye as a amulet.
And some links:
Bastet, the cat - a report from excavations at Tel Basta, February 2009
Aegis of Sekhmet or Bastet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
ETA: lots of stuff in the Bastet tag in my Tumblr!
__
Ambers, Janet et al. A new look at an old cat: a technical investigation of the Gayer-Anderson cat. British Museum Technical Research Bulletin 2 2008.
Arnold, Dorothea. An Egyptian Bestiary. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series 52(4) spring, 1995), pp. 1+7-64.
Cartwright, Harry W. The Iconography of Certain Egyptian Divinities as Illustrated by the Collections in Haskell Oriental Museum. The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 45(3) April 1929 pp. 179-196.
Review by Henry George Fischer of Tell Basta by Labib Habachi. American Journal of Archaeology 62(3) July 1958, pp. 330-333.
Pinch, Geraldine. Egyptian Mythology: a guide to the gods, goddesses, and traditions of ancient Egypt. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Raffaele, Francesco. An unpublished Early Dynastic stone vessel fragment with incised inscription naming the goddess Bastet. Cahiers Caribéens d'Egyptologie , 7-8, 2005.
Schorsch, Deborah and James H. Frantza. A Tale of Two Kitties. Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, winter 1997/1998, pp 16-29.
Scott, Nora E. The Cat of Bastet. Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin ns 17(1) summer 1958, pp 1-7.
Spalinger, Anthony J. "Social and Religious Implications of the New Military System". in War in Ancient Egypt: the New Kingdom. Malden, MA; Oxford, Blackwell, 2005.
Te Velde, H. "The Cat as sacred animal of the goddess Mut." In M. Heerma van Voss et al (eds). Studies in Egyptian Religion. Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1982.
- Some Remarks on the Structure of Egyptian Divine Triads. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 57, August 1971, pp 80-86.