Egyptian Bronze Goddess Bastet as Seated Cat
Late Period-Ptolemaic Period, 664-30 B.C. A bronze figure of the cat goddess Bastet, squatting poised and alert with her tail wrapped close to right side of her body, seated on a tongue-shaped base, short lug below; accompanied by a custom-made display base. Cf. The Metropolitan Museum, New York, accession numbers 2021.41.166 and 44.4.9, for similar; Tiribilli, E., The bronze figurines of the Petrie Museum from 2000 BC to AD 400, London, 2018, p.190, no.268, for similar. 137 grams total, 10 cm high including stand (4 in.). Acquired 1980s.Private collection of L.H., Staffordshire, UK.Property of a Sussex, UK, teacher. Bastet was a powerful goddess of Lower Egypt, one who was protective and could bring about great prosperity. Cat statuettes were among some of the most common zoomorphic dedications of the Late and Ptolemaic Periods. Small statuettes like this one would have been dedicated as offerings to temples or deposited in catacombs alongside cat mummies, as at the extensive catacombs at Bubastis and Saqqara. Sometimes larger hollow examples held a cat mummy inside.