Cat on a handle

Cat on a handle

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bastet was a powerful goddess of Lower Egypt, one who was protective and could bring about great prosperity. In zoomorphic form, she was represented as a cat and cats were considered sacred to her. As a cat, she is poised and alert, on guard against external forces. Here the sits at the top of a vessel handle. Usually in the seated position, the cat’s tail curves at its feet to the right. Here, the figure is adapted to the vessel and the tail falls downward, following the curve of the handle. Cat statuettes and cat mummies were among some of the most common zoomorphic dedications of the Late and Ptolemaic Periods, and this cult vessel should be seen in relation to those types of dedications. Small statuettes would have been dedicated as offerings to temples or deposited in catacombs alongside cat mummies, as at the extensive catacombs at Bubastis and Saqqara.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.