Cat

The cat was considered to be a sacred animal to Bastet, dear to the Egyptians as the goddess of hearth and family, as well as of beauty and self-indulgence. This bronze statue shows the feline sitting on its hind legs with its tail on the right side of its body, elegantly curved and hollow inside in order to hold a cat mummy. One possible way to show one’s devotion to Bastet and obtain her benevolence was to make a pilgrimage to one of her places of worship and pay the temple priests to sacrifice and mummify a cat, to be offered to the goddess as an ex-voto. The bronze sarcophagus made the offering even more precious, also revealing the high social status of the offerer. This form of popular devotion grew dramatically in the 1st millennium B.C., particularly from the 26th dynasty (664-525 B.C.) until the Roman era (30 B.C. – 395 A.D.).