Well documented. Several independent sources across different periods. In the record from the very beginning.
Bastet bꜣstt
the lady of Bubastis
The myth, retold
The story as it is told
A retelling, not a translation. What follows is the story as it is commonly told, drawn together from the better popular and scholarly accounts. It is not keyed to any single ancient text, and the ancient sources rarely agree with each other as neatly as a retelling has to. The attested record — with its sources, its gaps, and its disagreements — is below.
Bastet is the Egyptian goddess most people can picture instantly and place least accurately.
You are thinking of a cat. A neat, upright, bronze cat, ears pricked, gold ring in one ear. And that is genuinely her — but late. Go back far enough and the cat is not there at all.
She starts as a lioness
Early Bastet is leonine, and at that stage you cannot reliably tell her from Sekhmet.
That is not a modern muddle; it is visible in the sources. Budge, describing a lioness head projecting from the shoulder of the goddess Mut, says it "indicates that she was identified with Sekhet or Bast" — offering the two names as alternatives, because at that point they are alternatives. Elsewhere a goddess in a vignette is addressed as Sekhet-Bast-Ra, all three in one breath.
Her name also turns up welded into other goddesses entirely: Mut-Uatchet-Bast. Mut-Sekhet-Bast-Menhit.
Read those compounds and you get a much better picture of how this actually worked than any tidy list of gods would give you. Bastet is not a separate deity with her own department. She is one term in a cluster of lioness goddesses that Egyptian writers combined and recombined depending on what they needed.
And she is very old
The name Bastet appears in the Pyramid Texts — Budge cites the pyramid of Pepi I. So she is in the record among the earliest named Egyptian deities, roughly two thousand years before the domestic cat becomes her animal.
Her city is older than most things too. The eighteenth nome of Lower Egypt had its capital at Per-Bast — literally "the house of Bast" — which the Greeks called Bubastis. City and goddess share a name, and the city is named for her, not the other way round.
The soft one and the fierce one
Later tradition sorts the lioness cluster into two poles: Sekhmet the destroyer who nearly ended the human race, Bastet the protector who guards the house.
That contrast is real in the late material, and it is genuinely useful — it gives Egyptian religion a way to talk about the same solar power in its dangerous and its benign aspect, depending on which one you need today.
But it is late, and reading it back into the Old Kingdom will mislead you. Early Bastet is not the gentle one. Early Bastet is a lioness, and a lioness is not gentle.
What she became good for
The role she settles into is domestic. Protection of the house, of women in childbirth, of children. And you can see that in how she is found: not in monumental state inscription but in amulets, small bronzes, household objects. Things people owned.
That is a different kind of importance from Amun's, and arguably a more intimate one. Amun had Karnak and an empire's revenue. Bastet had a small figure on a shelf in an ordinary house, put there by somebody worried about a child.
The famous parts, and a man who went
For a long time this page said that the enormous festival at Bubastis and the cat cemeteries were real but not properly checked here, and left them out.
They are in now, because Herodotus went to Bubastis and wrote down what he saw, and he is worth reading at length.
He says her temple was the most pleasing to the eye in Egypt — not the largest, not the costliest, the best-looking. It stood on what was effectively an island: two channels came in from the Nile and ran round either side, each a hundred feet wide and shaded with trees, meeting nowhere. And because the city had been banked up higher and higher over the centuries while the temple stayed at its original level, you looked down into it from wherever you stood.
The journey there was the festival. Boats full of men and women together, women with rattles, men with flutes, everyone else singing and clapping — and at every town along the river they put in to shore so the women could shout abuse at the women of that town, dance, and lift their skirts. At Bubastis they sacrificed, and more wine was drunk in those days than in all the rest of the year.
The attendance, according to the locals: seven hundred thousand.
Cats, and what a household did about them
The cat material is stranger than the festival.
Killing a cat on purpose was a capital offence. Killing one by accident got you whatever the priests decided. And when a house caught fire, Herodotus says, the Egyptians would form a line and stand guard over the cats instead of putting out the fire — because the cats, seemingly possessed, kept trying to jump into it. When one got through, the household went into mourning.
The mourning itself was graded by species. If a cat died in your house, everyone living there shaved their eyebrows. If a dog died, they shaved their whole head and body.
And the dead cats did not stay where they died. They were embalmed and carried to Bubastis — from all over Egypt, to her city, for burial. Dogs were buried in their own towns. Cats went to her.
That is a national shipping operation in the service of one goddess, and it is the reason her city gave up mummified cats in quantities nobody could quite believe when they started digging.
Overview
Bastet is the goddess most people can picture and least often place. The domestic cat is late in her history, not early; before it she is a lioness, and effectively indistinguishable from Sekhmet.
This entry is partial because the well-known material — the great festival at Bubastis, the cat cemeteries — reaches us mainly through Herodotus and through archaeology this reference has not yet cited properly. What is firmly established from the sources held here is her antiquity, her city, and her entanglement with the other lioness goddesses.
Attestation history
Old Kingdom. Budge records the name Bastet in the Pyramid Texts of Pepi I, line 569 [budge-1904], which places her among the earliest named Egyptian deities and long before the domestic cat becomes her animal.
Her city. Budge's nome list gives the eighteenth nome of Lower Egypt, Am-khent, with its capital Per-Bast — "the house of Bast," the Greeks' Bubastis — and Bast as its deity [budge-1904]. The city and the goddess carry the same name; one is named for the other.
Absorbed and compounded. By the New Kingdom her name appears folded into others. Budge records Mut-Uatchet-Bast and Mut-Sekhet-Bast-Menhit among the composite forms of Mut, and notes that a lioness head projecting from Mut's shoulder "indicates that she was identified with Sekhet or Bast" [budge-1904]. Elsewhere the goddess of a vignette is addressed as Sekhet-Bast-Ra [budge-1904].
Those compounds are the important evidence. They show Bastet operating as one term in a cluster of lioness goddesses — Sekhmet, Menhit, Mut — rather than as a separate figure with a separate department.
What the texts say
She is a face of the Eye. Bastet belongs to the group of goddesses identified with the Eye of Ra, alongside Hathor, Sekhmet and Wadjet. The Eye is the sun's disk sent out as an independent and dangerous agent; which goddess it is varies by text and period.
Later tradition tends to sort the cluster into a fierce term and a mild one — Sekhmet the lioness who nearly ended the species, Bastet the cat who protects the house. That contrast is real in the late material and should not be read back into the Old Kingdom, where Bastet is herself leonine.
Protection, domestically. Her later role is guarding the home, women in childbirth, and children — a household deity rather than a state one, which is consistent with how she is encountered archaeologically: in amulets and small figures rather than in monumental inscription.
Iconography
Late Bastet is a cat, or a woman with a cat's head, sometimes carrying a sistrum or a basket of kittens.
Earlier Bastet is a lioness, and at that stage she cannot reliably be distinguished from Sekhmet or Menhit without an inscription. Budge's evidence for the compounds turns on exactly this — a lioness head on Mut's shoulder is read as "Sekhet or Bast," the two names offered as alternatives [budge-1904].
If you are looking at a lioness-headed goddess and there is no text, be honest that you are guessing.
Cult and practice
Bubastis was her city, and Herodotus went there. The festival and the temple were held at second hand on this page for many batches; the text is now archived and quoted, and it is the richest cult description of any goddess in this corpus.
The temple
He rates it above every temple in Egypt on one specific ground — not size, not cost:
In this city there is a temple very well worthy of mention, for though there are other temples which are larger and built with more cost, none more than this is a pleasure to the eyes. [herodotus-ii]
The description is precise enough to reconstruct. The temple is an island. Except at the entrance it is completely surrounded by water: two channels come in from the Nile without joining, each running round one side, each a hundred feet broad and shaded over with trees. The gateway stands ten fathoms high, ornamented with figures six cubits high. A stone wall with carved figures runs round it; inside is a grove of very large trees planted round the temple-house, and inside that, the image of the goddess. The precinct is a furlong every way.
And one detail no summary preserves: because the rest of the city had been banked up over centuries while the temple stayed at its original level, you look down into it from every side as you walk round. The sanctuary sits in a green well below the street.
The festival
Herodotus ranks the Egyptian assemblies and puts this one first — held "especially and with the greatest zeal and devotion at the city of Bubastis," ahead of Isis at Busiris, Athene at Sais, and the Sun at Heliopolis [herodotus-ii].
The journey is the festival:
they sail men and women together, and a great multitude of each sex in every boat; and some of the women have rattles and rattle with them, while some of the men play the flute during the whole time of the voyage, and the rest, both women and men, sing and clap their hands; and when as they sail they come opposite to any city on the way they bring the boat to land, and some of the women continue to do as I have said, others cry aloud and jeer at the women in that city, some dance, and some stand up and pull up their garments. This they do by every city along the river-bank. [herodotus-ii]
Then the arrival, and two figures:
and when they come to Bubastis they hold festival celebrating great sacrifices, and more wine of grapes is consumed upon that festival than during the whole of the rest of the year… they come together year by year even to the number of seventy myriads of men and women, besides children. [herodotus-ii]
Seventy myriads is seven hundred thousand. Herodotus attributes the number to the locals — "so say the natives" — and it should be read as a boast he is reporting rather than a census. The annual drink figure is his own.
The ritual jeering deserves a note. Boats of women stopping at each town to shout abuse at the women of that town, dance, and lift their skirts is not decorum breaking down; it is the observance. Whatever it meant, it was the thing you did on the way to Bastet.
The cats
Herodotus describes cats as protected property under a law with teeth: killing one deliberately is death, and killing one by accident carries whatever penalty the priests set [herodotus-ii].
Two passages are worth having whole. On fire:
when a fire occurs, the cats seem to be divinely possessed; for while the Egyptians stand at intervals and look after the cats, not taking any care to extinguish the fire, the cats slipping through or leaping over the men, jump into the fire; and when this happens, great mourning comes upon the Egyptians. [herodotus-ii]
A household forming a cordon to keep the cats out of the burning building, and letting the building burn.
On mourning:
in whatever houses a cat has died by a natural death, all those who dwell in this house shave their eyebrows only; but those in which a dog has died shave their whole body and also their head. [herodotus-ii]
A graded mourning code, calibrated by species, running on the visible face.
And the disposal — which is the cat-cemetery claim, sourced at last:
The cats when they are dead are carried away to sacred buildings in the city of Bubastis, where after being embalmed they are buried [herodotus-ii]
So the cats of all Egypt were shipped to her city. Not buried locally, as the dogs were — collected and sent to Bubastis. That is a national logistics operation in the service of one goddess, and it is why the site produced mummified cats in the quantities it did.
Artemis
Herodotus consistently gives her Greek name: "Bubastis in the Hellenic tongue is Artemis," and again, "Artemis is Bubastis" [herodotus-ii]. Note that he equates the goddess with the city's name, not with a separate divine name — the same place-for-goddess slippage documented at anit and hatmehit.
He also reports the Egyptian story in which Artemis is the daughter of Demeter — i.e. Bastet as daughter of Isis — and notes that Aeschylus took that genealogy from Egypt, "wherein he differs from all the preceding poets" [herodotus-ii]. A named Greek tragedian changing his mythology because of an Egyptian cult claim is an unusually concrete piece of transmission.
What this upgrade did, and what it did not
The festival, the temple and the cat cemeteries were the three items this entry named as missing, and all three were in a book already on disk — archived after the entry was written and never re-read against it. See C388.
The chapter numbers are still not here. The open thread asked for Herodotus cited "with a chapter number," and the archived Macaulay/Gutenberg edition prints none. The standard divisions are II.59–60 (the festival), II.66–67 (the cats) and II.137–138 (the temple); those numbers are supplied from the conventional apparatus and are not in the archived text. Cited by content above.
The record
Every claim above traces to a row here. Source, exact place in that source, and what it actually supports.
| Source | Locus | Attests |
|---|---|---|
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* I, archaic-name list, citing Pepi I 569 | the name Bastet in the Pyramid Texts |
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* I, nome list | Am-khent, eighteenth nome of Lower Egypt: capital Per-Bast, deity Bast |
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* II, forms of Mut | Mut-Uatchet-Bast, Mut-Sekhet-Bast-Menhit; the lioness head read as "Sekhet or Bast" |
[budge-1904] | *Gods of the Egyptians* II, vignette rubric | the goddess addressed as Sekhet-Bast-Ra |
[herodotus-ii] | *Account of Egypt*, the Egyptian solemn assemblies | Bubastis ranked **first** among them, "with the greatest zeal and devotion," ahead of Busiris, Sais and Heliopolis |
[herodotus-ii] | *ibid.*, the voyage to Bubastis | mixed boats; **rattles, flutes, singing, clapping**; landing at every town to **jeer, dance and lift garments**; **seventy myriads** attending; more wine drunk than in the rest of the year |
[herodotus-ii] | *ibid.*, the temple at Bubastis | **surrounded by water** on all sides but the entrance; two Nile channels **a hundred feet broad**, tree-shaded; gateway **ten fathoms**, figures **six cubits**; precinct **a furlong every way**; **the city banked up so the temple is looked down into** |
[herodotus-ii] | *ibid.*, the sacred animals | killing a cat deliberately punished by **death**; **cats leaping into fires** while Egyptians guard them and let the house burn; **eyebrows shaved** for a dead cat, whole body and head for a dog |
[herodotus-ii] | *ibid.* | **dead cats embalmed and carried to Bubastis** for burial — dogs buried in their own cities |
[herodotus-ii] | *ibid.* | "**Bubastis in the Hellenic tongue is Artemis**"; "**Artemis is Bubastis**"; Artemis as daughter of Demeter, a genealogy **Aeschylus took from Egypt** |
Sources
[budge-1904]— Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (1904), vols I–II. Public domain, archived insources-texts/. Budge caveat applies; used here for his nome list, Pyramid Text name references and transcribed compound forms.[herodotus-ii]— Herodotus, An Account of Egypt (Histories II), trans. G. C. Macaulay. Public domain, archived asherodotus-book2-account-of-egypt-macaulay.txt. Corrected 2026-07-30 — this line previously named the Rawlinson translation and said the text was not archived; the archived edition is Macaulay's, and it is now quoted throughout. Herodotus is a foreign visitor writing roughly two millennia after the cult began: he is a first-rate witness to Late Period practice he saw, and not a witness to what the goddess meant in the Old Kingdom.[wilkinson-2003]— Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses. In copyright; cited only.
Open questions
- ~~Cite Herodotus II directly on the Bubastis festival~~ Done 2026-07-30 — archived, quoted, and the source line corrected from Rawlinson to Macaulay. The chapter number is still outstanding: the Gutenberg Macaulay text prints no chapter divisions, so a numbered edition is needed to nail the citations to II.59–60, II.66–67 and II.137–138.
- Get an excavation reference and a quantity figure for the Bubastis cat cemeteries. Herodotus now supplies the practice — cats embalmed and shipped to Bubastis from all over Egypt — but not a number. The Victorian and modern excavation reports would give one.
- Is the seventy myriads defensible? Seven hundred thousand attendees is a very large number for any premodern gathering, and Herodotus flags it as local testimony. Worth a line comparing it to estimates of Egypt's total population.
- The ritual jeering — women in boats shouting abuse at the women of each town, dancing, and lifting their garments. Find whether any Egyptian source describes this from the inside; Herodotus reports it without explaining it.
- Verify Budge's "Pepi I 569" against Sethe's edition.
- Date the shift from lioness to domestic cat with an object. This is now the entry's main gap — the grade rose on the Herodotus attestations, and the lioness-to-cat transition is still undated.
- Write sekhmet's counterpart note: the fierce/mild sorting is late, and both entries should say so identically.
Cite this entry
Research grade: ●full — Multiple attestations across periods.
"Bastet", The Egyptian God Corpus,
graded full, retrieved 2026-08-10.