Egyptian Faience Amulets- Bastet as a Cat
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Bastet as a cat 2019-07-26
Name/Title
Egyptian Faience Amulets- Bastet as a CatEntry/Object ID
03EG0883xiiDescription
Faience amulet of Bastet as a seated cat. A suspension loop is situated above the spine of the cat.Use
ProtectionContext
The Egyptians believed that misfortune and disease originated from malign spirits and the hostile dead. Maintaining health and prosperity was therefore achieved by providing protection against these forces. Amulets representing particular forces were worn around the neck for good luck and protection. They were also buried with the dead to ensure safe passage to the afterlife. The most prominent of ancient Egyptian feline deities, the cat goddess Bastet was worshipped throughout the Dynastic Period and was associated with female fertility and sexuality, and the protection of pregnant women. Bastet appears to have gradually acquired less ferocious and violent characteristics. Her earliest known images, dating to the second dynasty, depict her in the form of a human woman with the head of a maneless lion; but by the New Kingdom, she had assumed the form of a cat or cat-headed woman, sometimes accompanied by kittens and handling various instruments adorned with the menat necklace. In the Pyramid and Coffin texts, while some of her aggressive qualities are maintained, she is ascribed nurturing and protective functions. Amulets of Bastet such as this may have been worn by women in order to confer upon them the patronage, protection and fecundity of the goddess in both the world of the living and of the dead.Made/Created
Time Period
UnknownEthnography
Culture/Tribe
Egyptian