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Statuette of Bastet 7th-1st centuries B.C. Cast bronze Height: 11.5 cm Bastet was the goddess of the city of Bubastis, named in her honour and situated in the Nile Delta. She was originally depicted as a lioness or a woman with the head of a lioness; later the cat became her animal. Bronze statuettes from the middle and second half of the first millennium B.C., when her cult became widespread, depict her with a cat's head. In the places where Bastet was worshipped a great many mummies of cats have survived, since in late Egypt these animals were considered sacred (according to Herodotus killing one was punishable by death). As a fierce lioness Bastet was identified with the martial goddess Sekhmet who had the same appearance, and as a playful cat with Hathor, the goddess of merriment. The identification of Bastet and Hathor is also indicated by the fact that they had one and the same invariable attribute - the sistrum or ritual rattle (lost from this particular statuette).
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