The Goddess Bast by Nyack

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

 

Bast is the Egyptian Goddess and protector of cats, women and children. She is Goddess of sunrise. Her goddess duty changed over the years, but, she is also known as a goddess of love, fertility, birth, music and dance. Bast is the Goddess of the moon and possessor of the Utchat. The all seeing eye of her brother Horus. Her scared city is Bubastis, was in lower Egypt (the northern part). Bubastis signifies "The House of Cats" in ancient Egyptian. Bast feast day is celebrated on October 31. The Egyptians celebrated the feast of Bast with merry making, music, dancing, drinking much like our modern Marti Gras. Bast is often shown holding a sistrum (a type of rattle), during the celebrating, worshipers shuck a sistrum. Bast has a twin sister name Sekhmet. Together the twin sisters formed the "Yin Yang" of Egyptian religion. Bastet being the positive force and Sekhmet being the destructive force. Bast is depicted in art many ways, the most common is the body of young woman with the head of a domestic cat. (Her sister, Sekhmet is shown with the head of a lioness). Another popular form of Bast, is her earthly form, a seated cat, when in this form her name changes to Bastet. Bast's scared color is green.

Mother of all cats, embodiment of the warmth of sunshine, and goddess of the East, this deity in cat form was one of the most popular in all of Egypt. Cats of course were the most sacred of all animals to the Egyptians, but the black cat was particularly sacred to 'Bastet'. As a result, the physicians of the time would use the icon of a black cat in their healing practices. She was also considered the goddess of pleasures, which covered a lot of territory. Among many of the things that fell under her patronage were: generosity, music and dance, childbirth, protection against evil, frivolity, and sex. And this is by no means a complete list of all she covered. Not only was she the goddess of all cats, but of all animals in general! If this wasn't enough, she was also the goddess of fire and of the moon. Several temples were dedicated to her, and each was home to countless cats which were treated as literal incarnations of the goddess.

Even her sacred city in Bubastis, (in Lower Egypt) signifies "The House of Cats". Another name for Bubastis is 'Pibeseth'. Bubastis owes much of its fame to being the main cult centre of the cat goddess Bastet, about whom centered an annual festival that allowed excessive drinking and free sex. Large parts of the northern section of Bubastis was a cat cemetery, joined by a cemetery of humans who wanted to be buried near the sacred animals. The tombs at Bubastis were accordingly the principal depository in Egypt of the mummies of the cat.

OTHER NAMES:
Bastet, Bast, Bastis, "the Tearer"
Bubastis Greek version,
Pacht, Pasht Pasch
Ubast, Ubasti
Ba en Aset : the soul of Aset (Isis)
Other titles Bast was given with time were "Lady of the East", "the Light
Bearer", "Lady of Truth" and "Goddess of the Birth Chamber".

OFFERINGS:
Thousands of small cat sculptures,
probably left with offerings to the Temple by devotees, have also been recovered at Bubastis.
sweet liquids and foodstuffs
mint, catnip, honey, raw meat,
perfumes and ointments (especially in the "bas" jars which are a pun on Her name).
Never offered: cats (The penality for killing a cat was getting killed !)


She was responsible for Joy, Music, and Dancing, also Health and Healing.
She also protected humans against contagious diseases and evil spirits.

Her cult can be traced back to about 3200 BC,
and she became a national deity when Bubastis became the capital of Egypt in about 950 BC.

Her origin is said to be in this city Bubastis,
although her association with the lion-goddess Sekhmet makes it likely that her cult was also celebrated at Memphis.
Temple honoring Bast were found at Bubastis, Memphis-Sakkara and Dendera.

Cats, as manifestations of Deity, were sacred; they protected the grain from mice and rats.
Killing a cat was punished with death.
Bast is the daughter and/or wife of Ra, the God of the Sun.

Bast (Ubasti; G/R Bastet, Bubastis) - "Devouring Lady" (from bas, to devour, with feminine ending); One of the earliest-documented Names with an appearance in Dynasty II, Bast is first and foremost a protectress; specifically of the royal house and the Two Lands. During Dynasty IV, She was a patron-Name of Lower Kemet, paired with Hethert as a patron-Name of Upper Kemet, as Wadjet and Nekhbet are often depicted in later times; the Valley Temple of the Pyramid of Khafra at modern-day Giza next to the Sphinx had a "Portal of Bast" as well as statues of Bast in the company of the king. Over time, Bast's image metamorphosed to become more similar to that of Hethert; eventually, into the Greek period, She would be equated with the virgin huntress Artemis and considered the protectress of children and pregnant mothers, musicians and a goddess of all sorts of excess, especially sexual excess. However, Bast's original visage did not include the "cat as sex symbol" archetype. (Incidentally, it is also from the Greeks that the erroneous belief in Bast as a daughter of Aset and Wesir derives; Bast as Artemis had to have a twin brother, Apollo (equated with Heru-sa-Aset by the Greeks).) A play on words in Bast's name resulted in Her being equated in Greco-Roman times with the "soul of Isis" (ba-Aset), probably in keeping with Aset's gradual syncretism into the Roman Isis of Ten Thousand Names.

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Christine Narducci 8:07in the evenin' Jan 19
Bastet
Appearance Woman with the head of a cat
Bastet was a protective goddess. Bastet
Bastet was usually seen as a gentle protective goddess. However, she sometimes appeared with the head of a lioness to protect the king in battle.

The cat was a symbol of Bastet. The ancient Egyptians made many statues of cats like this one to honour Bastet.

Bastet was one of the daughters of the sun god, Ra. A great temple was built in her honour at Bubastis in the Delta.