Details

LOT 0520

Egyptian Faience Bastet Cat Amulet Collection

NEW KINGDOM, 1550-1070 B.C. AND LATER

1 7/8 - 2 in. (83 grams total, 47-52 mm including stands).

Pale yellow, turquoise, and blue faience seated cat figures, each shown on a base plinth and with a suspension loop behind the head. [3]

Provenance

Collection of a Lady, circa 1940.
From a specialist collection.

Literature

Cf. Lacovara, P., and Markowitz, Y.J., Jewels of the Nile: Ancient Egyptian Treasures from the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester MA, 2020, pp. 108-109, for examples of similar cat amulets.

Footnotes

In ancient Egypt, the cat was revered as the sacred animal of the goddess Bastet, whose main cult centre was Bubastis in the Nile Delta. Although cats were once part of folk customs, their formal worship expanded across Egypt during the Late Period. Bastet was closely connected to lion-headed goddesses such as Sekhmet, Tefnut, and Pakhet, and the cat itself became linked to solar imagery: the Book of the Dead depicts the sun god as a Great Cat defeating Apophis beneath the sacred Ished Tree. The cat could also represent the Eye of the Sun or, more commonly in Bastet’s case, the Eye of the Moon. Mummified cats were often offered as votive offerings, and some were decorated with finely crafted bronze heads to emphasise their divine likeness.