31-Statuette of Bastet

This lovely bronze statuette depicts the feline goddess Bastet. Sometimes this type of statue is described in modern terms as a “Handbag Bastet” due to the small basket that hangs from the goddess’s arm. Bastet holds a sistrum in her upraised hand and, in her other, an aegis with a leonine head, a sun disk, and a broad collar.¹ Symbolizing the role of Bastet as the goddess of dance, the disks on the sistrum produced a gentle rattle when shaken. The aegis was a protective element that carried the strength and fierceness of the lioness goddess Sekhmet, Bastet’s alter-ego. The goddess wears a broad collar and an ankle-length robe decorated with stripes in a herringbone pattern. Pious visitors gave bronze statues such as this to Bastet in her cult places at Bubastis, Saqqara, and Tanis.²

MH

1. Cf. insignia Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Ägyptische–Orientalische Sammlung, inv. Nr. 6632 from Bubastis. ↩︎

2. Weiss 2012, 122–123, fig. 121. ↩︎