Bastet

Egyptian Mythology


A Bastet (Ubasti, Baset, and later Bastet) is an ancient solar and war goddess, worshiped at least since the Second Dynasty. In the late dynasties, the priests of Amun began to call her Bastet, a repetitive and diminutive form after her role in the pantheon became diminished as Sekhmet (Goddess of War and Vengeance), a similar lioness war deity, became more dominant in the unified culture of Lower and Upper Egypt. In the Middle Kingdom, the cat appeared as Bastet’s sacred animal and after the New Kingdom she was depicted as a woman with a cat’s head carrying a sacred rattle and a box or basket. 

Bastet is the bastardized name of Bast, another Egyptian Cat Goddess because of confusion and alphabetic pollution. As the Egyptian language changed, some letter-sounds were in danger of losing their pronunciation. So scribes fought a rear-guard action by nailing extra letters to the ends of words. Thus Bast became Bastet. But the 'et' at the end is, or should be, silent.

Bast is the daughter of Ra. She is the cat-headed Goddess of Fertility, Sensuality and Fire Prevention. She also has a flair for avenging wrongs and is feisty enough for the Greeks to have identified her with their own Goddess Artemis. Artemis the Goddess of Hunting, Animal Liberation, Feistiness and Feminism.