Bastet

The tale of Bastet

Bastet is the Egyptian goddess of the home, of cats, of women and children, of music, dance and joy. She is shown as a woman with the head of a cat, often holding a sistrum (a rattle used in festivals), with a basket on her arm and kittens at her feet. Her name was written with the sign of an ointment jar, and she was also a protector against disease and evil spirits.

But Bastet was not always a housecat. In the oldest times she was a fierce lioness, a warrior goddess and the protector of the king in battle, very much like her sister Sekhmet. Over the centuries, as the Egyptians came to love the cats who guarded their grain stores from rats and their homes from snakes, Bastet softened into the gentle cat goddess, while Sekhmet kept the lion's rage. Many Egyptians thought of them as two faces of the same goddess: the lioness in battle, the cat at home.

The cat who fights the serpent

Like Set, Bastet was a daughter and defender of the sun god Ra. Some texts say she rode on his boat through the underworld at night, and in one famous picture a great cat with a knife cuts off the head of the chaos serpent Apep beneath a sacred tree. To the Egyptians a cat killing a snake was a small daily victory of order over chaos.

The festival of Bubastis

Her great temple stood in the city of Bubastis in the Nile delta. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that her festival was the largest in Egypt: hundreds of thousands of people sailed there in boats, singing, clapping, playing flutes and castanets, and drank more wine during the festival than in all the rest of the year.

Cats were sacred to Bastet. Killing one, even by accident, could be punished by death. When a family cat died, the household shaved their eyebrows in mourning. Hundreds of thousands of mummified cats have been found in the cemeteries of Bubastis and Saqqara, offered to the goddess.

Bastet in Battle of Myths

Bastet is a cost 1 Egyptian hero with two aspects. As the Cat Goddess (assassin and hunter) she makes a Pounce at the weakest enemy and becomes harder to hit, dodging attacks for a moment. As the Lady of the Home (mystic and guardian) she gives a Protective Purr, shielding the two most wounded allies. With every Egyptian hero she shares the Sun Cycle: by day the Egyptians strike faster, and at nightfall they are shielded.

Did you know?

• As the game's Bastet says: lioness or housecat? It depends entirely on what you do next.
• The British Museum's famous bronze "Gayer-Anderson cat", with gold earrings and a nose ring, is an image of Bastet.