Lia Gubau Llibre English 6 January 29, 2013 Informational writing #1 Bast We all know how ancient Egypt

has a lot of great things. I would really like to learn about the gods, because I think that it is really interesting. There is one goddess especially that I would like to learn a lot more about. That one goddess is Bast. I think that she is really different from the others, because she is shown completely like a cat. There are a lot of questions that I would like to learn about Bast. One of them is what was she goddess of? Who were her siblings? Another question that I have about her is what did her symbols looked like? Is there any reason why she likes cats? Does she have any other names? How is she like in the inside? What are cats to Bast? Bast had more names than just Bast. In ancient Egypt a lot of people also called her Bastet, and Ailuros. Her name could be translated as Devouring Lady. The sounds bas are written with an oil jar, the t is the feminine ending. She was a very distinctive goddess, because she was shown as a cat. Bast was goddess of a lot of things. She was goddess of the sun, the moon, cats, women, and secrets. Originally she was a sun goddess, but with the Greeks she changed to a moon goddess. Basts brother was Horus, and she was daughter of Ra. She was shown as a cat, a lioness and she was holding a sistra with her right hand. The sistra is a musical instrument made of wooden frame and small metal pieces that made sound when you shook them. It is believed that the sistrum might have originated in the practice of shaking bundles of papyrus flowers. This instrument has been related with many other goddesses, for example Amon, Isis and the most important Hator. To the people who were in her favor she was good and blessing, but she had a lot of wrath. Cats were sacred to Bast. Cats in ancient Egypt helped slow down the spread of sickness. From the 2nd Dynasty Bastet was originally portrayed as a wild cat or as a lioness, and only became associated with the domesticated feline around

1000 BCE. Archaeologists found about 300,000 mummified cats in the temple of Bastet. According to ancient Egyptians it was tradition that when a cat passed away at the owners house the family members would actually shave their eyebrows and then proceed with the body to the center of Bastets cult. The town of Bubastis. When I started this project, I decided to do it about the pharaohs life. Once I had a lot done, I thought that I already knew a lot about that, so I decided that I would do something that I really wanted to learn about. After thinking of all the possibilities, I thought that I really liked to learn about gods and goddesses, so I decided to do Bast. Then there was another problem. I was done with my chart, but I did not have enough information to make three pharaohs, after trying to really explain everything to make the paragraphs longer, I decided to search some more. I went to the internet, and I really searched for detailed explanations. Although I had a little trouble with this project I still had fun learning about Bast. After all it was a fun project.