From: lf7z@ellis.uchicago.edu (Glenn Carnagey)
Subject: Re: SANDMAN:  Bubastis & Bast
Reply-To: lf7z@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 09:47:39 GMT

Lance wrote:

>- A bit about Bubastis. This was the center for the worship of Bast. She
>  was the protector of the city among other things. The city also was 
>  known for its immense cat cemetary. The 22nd dynasty, that brought
>  Bast to greater prominence, was known as The Bubastites. The city was
>  located near the modern Zagazig. (I mention Zagazig because I like 
>  saying it and because it just showed up in a Sax Rohmer novel I was 
>  reading.) How am I doing, Glenn?

Pretty good, I'd say :) In fact Tell Basta is in the SE corner of
Zagazig, in the eastern Delta, on (believe it or not) the Bubastite
branch of the branch, which dried up on a long time ago.  It's what's
known as a gezirah (arabic for island) or 'turtleback', meaning that
back before UNICEF killed the inundation, it would be surrounded by
water for a third of the year.  Among lots of other nifty things found
there, were some really fine black granite sphinxes (sphinges is a new
one on me, Lance, but it is a nifty variant :^) currently in the Cairo
Museum.  For the curious, sphinx is the Greek rendition of 'seshep
ankh', or 'living image', originally (in the Book of the Dead and the
Pyramid Texts) it referred to the setting Sun god Atum, but mostly it
just means a statue with the god's anima, the one at Giza belongs to
Chephren (Cheops).  Today we use it for any of the multitudinous animal
statues with the king's head on them.  These almost invariably line
the lane leading into Temple, and it's generally the builder's head on
them.  The one at Giza is controversial, as you well know, because a)
it's so damn big and b) the public refuses to believe it's origin
could possibly be as boring as the evidence suggests.  When we worked
there Striper and Nova both came to visit, they were proponents of the
Atlantis theory (Striper I mean).  And the Nova reporter had a fiery
fling with one of my professors -- the source of innumerable great
jokes to this day :^).

Basta is one of the few sites I haven't gotten to yet, because in a
curious reversal of history, the Delta is really difficult to get
around in today -- not for tourists or the faint of heart.  But I'm
planning to visit when I go back in the Fall, because I did an article
on it's 'next-door neighbor', Tel Adaba (Bib.  Pi Ramesses).  Anyway
it's been excavated (or plundered, depending on your perspective) at
various times since 1887, so today it's in pretty bad shape, though
the remains of the main temple are still to be seen, and the remains
stretch from about 2800 BC to 200 AD.  Just beyond this are two rows
of pillars that mark an 3rd Mill BC temple that's totalled, and beyond
that are catacombs where Naville found the cat mummies.  We have two
of these at the museum I work at, and we're going to x-ray them Real
Soon Now.  It was briefly a capital of Egypt during what's called the
Third Intermediate Period when Lybian kings ran Egypt, as Lance said
the 22nd Dynasty ruled from here (ca. 945-715 BC).  They were run out
of town by Piay, a Nubian who's coincidentally the star of my
dissertation, or one of them at any rate :^) A good book on the place
is Labib Habachi, "Tell Basta", 1952.  Actually it's the only one in
English that's not really ancient, obsolete and/or inaccessible, but
it's still a good book :) It's quite likely that the Shishak who sacked
Solomon's Temple is one of the King Shoshenqs who lived in Bubastis,
probably the first one, who also founded the dynasty.

>- The Goddess Bast evolved quite a bit. Originally she had the head of a
>  tiger and may have been a goddess of war. Later, she was viewed with
>  the cat's head (and called Pasht) and was the protector of pregnant
>  women, the warmth of a fire and to some extent, music and dance. Her
>  actions in the tent seem more true to her sex kitten role. By Herodotus'
>  account, the festivals of Bast were quite unruly affairs with a great deal
>  of wine consumed. Sorta like Mardi Gras with an emphasis on barges and
>  cats.

Herod. ii:60 (Herodatus almost certainly visited Bubastis)

	"When the people are on their way to Bubastis, they go by
river, men and women together, a great number of each in every boat.
Some of the women play sistrums (I doubt this is the correct plural,
but it's late :) and others play flutes all the way, while the rest of
the women, and the men, sing and clap their hands ... But when they
have reached Bubastis, they make a festival with great (non-bloody)
sacrifices, and more wine is drunk (gr?) than in the rest of the year
put together"

The musicians (and unmentioned acrobatic dancers) would have been the
priestesses of Bast, as far as I know there's no mention of a High
Priest(ess), but there must have been one.  The feast description
could apply to the Inundation festival at any Egyptian city (filling
in it's appropriate deity) over a 4000 year period.

However, as far as I know, tigers are unknown in Egypt, and she was
always a lioness goddess, with a close association with cats from
about 1000 BC on.  This reached its heighth in the Classical period
when literally thousands of cats were mummified and buried in the
catacombs, along with other sacred animals like the ibis and the Apis
bull.  Lance is right about her association with fertility and
pregnancy, also Music & Dance, and she was prayed to for warding off
evil spirits and disease (which were pretty much the same thing to an
ancient Egyptian :).  No war associations with goddesses until the
Semites exported theirs, the source has confused Bastet with the
goddess Sekhmet (also a lioness, but from Southern Egypt) who was a
goddess of destruction and famine.  Frankly, all Egyptian feasts were
unruly affairs :), but this was one of the larger ones after about
950 BC, Herodatus says 700,000 attended (but I don't believe him :^).

>- Tempus Frangit. Time stops or time shatters or time breaks? Anyone have
>  any of the training in Latin that I obviously lack?

No that's right, 'time shatters' (but not stops).  Well, I thought it
was clever :)

>- Does Dream stop Nuala's dancing because he's not keen on dancing or because 
>  she is wearing the crystal about her neck? Lucien did tell her not to
>  let Dream see it.

Gee, I thought it was just because it clashed with his foul mood :^)

Pax ex machina,
Glenn
......................................................................
"So here we are in Ancient Egypt!
   Sensitively rendered after painstaking research, no doubt.'
     --- Sam & Max (traveling via spilt beer portal in Munden's Bar)
g-carnagey@uchicago.edu, if you must know
......................................................................



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