Catology
Was there really a Cat Woman?
Goddess Bast (Bastet, Pasch, Ubasti, Ba en Aset) -
Shes the daughter of the sun god Ra, wife of Ptah, and mother to Mihos. Also to in some text Bast was acknowledged as sister to Horus and the daughter of Isis and Osiris. Bast is an ancient Egyptian goddess who is still greatly revered by many today. Her worship began around the year 3200 BCE during the second dynasty in northern Egypt in the city of Bubastis.
In Bubastis and many other ancient cities, Egyptians celebrated Bast’s feast day. Once a year around October 31, the festival of Bastet would occur with hundreds of thousands of people making pilgrimages to Bubastis and other ancient cities. Bastet, protectress of many ancient cities is the Sacred Cat and her name means devouring lady or "she who comes from Bast." She is depicted as having the body of a woman and the head of a domestic cat. She holds the sacred rattle, Sistrum, and she possesses Utchat, the divine, all-seeing eye of Ra.
Related to Neith the Night Goddess, Bast symbolized the moon in its function of making a woman fruitful, with swelling womb. Bast was originally a goddess of the sun, but later changed by the Greeks to a goddess of the moon. She was also the Egyptian Goddess of pleasure, music, dancing, and joy. In Greek mythology, Bast is also known as Aelurus. This gentler characteristic, of Bast as goddess of perfumes, together with Lower Egypt's loss in the wars between Upper and Lower Egypt, led to a decrease in her ferocity. Thus, by the Middle Kingdom she was generally regarded as a domestic cat rather than a lionness that she originally was viewed as the protector goddess of Lower Egypt.
During the new kingdom the male god Maahes became the fierce lion god said to be son of Sekhmet, Bast tiwn sister. Its confused to which sister was married to Ptah or if they were sisters and just maybe they were the same person. In other text I have found that Sekhmet is the triad goddess of Memphis with her husband Ptah, god of arts and crafts. In the same text it states that Nefertum was their son and the third member of the triad. Her name means (one who is) powerful.
As Lower Egypt had been conquered by Upper Egypt, Sekhmet was seen as the more vicious of the two war goddesses, the other, Bast being the war goddess of Lower Egypt. Consequently, it was Sekhmet who was seen as the Avenger of Wrongs, and Scarlet Lady, a reference to blood. As the one with bloodlust, she was also seen as ruling over menstruation.
Sekhmet's blood-lust led to her destroying almost all of humanity, so Ra tricked her by turning the Nile red like blood (the Nile turns red every year when filled with silt) so that Sekhmet would drink it. However, the red liquid was not blood but actually beer mixed with pomegranate juice so that it resembled blood, making her so drunk that she gave up slaughter and became the gentle Hathor.
After Sekhmet's worship moved to Memphis, as Horus and Ra had been identified as one another, under the name Ra-Herakhty, when the two religious systems were merged, and Ra became seen as a form of Atum, known as Atum-Ra, so Sekhmet, as a form of Hathor, was seen as Atum's mother. In particular, she was seen as the mother of Nefertum, the youthful form of Atum, and so was said to have Ptah, Nefertum's father, as a husband.
Though Sekhmet was originally identified with Hathor, over time both evolved into separate deities because the character of both goddess were so vastly different. Later the goddess Mut, the great mother, became significant, and gradually absorbed the identities of the patron goddesses, merging with Sekhmet, and also sometimes with Bast.
A lot of the text came from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bast_%28mythology%29
From there you can find both Bast and Sekhmet along with other gods and goddess' of Egypt.
Later information taken from Crystal Links
Her name has the hieroglyph of a 'bas'-jar with the feminine ending of 't'. These jars were heavy perfume jars, often filled with expensive perfumes - they were very valuable in Egypt, considering the Egyptian need (with the hot weather) of makeup, bathing, hygiene and (of course) perfume. Bast, by her name, seems to be related to perfumes in some way. Her son Nefertem, a solar god, was a god of perfumes and alchemy, which supports the theory. She was the mother of Mahes a Lion-headed God of healing. His main temple was at Leontopolis, although he did have a shrine at Bubastis. Bastet has another son in the form of the lion-headed god Mihos.
There is some confusion over Bast and Sekhmet. She was also considered to be the mother of Nefertem, as were a few other goddesses! Sekhmet was given the title the 'Eye of Ra' when she was in her protector form... but Bast and Sekhmet are not the same goddess (unlike Hathor who becomes Sekhmet as the 'Eye of Ra'). This all gives rise to a lot of confusion about these goddesses. Bast and Sekhmet were another example of Egyptian duality - Sekhmet was a goddess of Upper Egypt, Bast of Lower Egypt (just like the pharaoh was of Upper and/or Lower Egypt!)... and they were linked together by geography, not by myth or legend. These two feline goddesses were not related by family, they were both very distinct goddesses in their own rights.
Her cult centre was in Bubastis (the temple is now in ruins, but it was made of red granite with a sacred grove in the centre, with the shrine of the goddess herself... it was also full of cats). She was also worshiped all over Lower Egypt. In Bubastis we see Bast holding a sistrum or rattle. Bastet wore an aegis or shield in the form of a semi-circular plate, embellished with a lion's head. She was goddess of pleasure and inevitably became one of the most popular deities. Bubastis signifies The House of Cats in ancient Egyptian.
In her temple were kept sacred cats, who were supposed to be incarnations of the goddess. When they died they were carefully mummified. The Egyptians found something to worship in just about every animal they had: dogs, cats, lions, crocodiles, snakes, dung-beetles, hippos, hawks, cows and ibises.
When a cat died their former owners and occupants of the house would go into deep mourning and shave their eyebrows as a sign of grief. People are not the only mummies in Egypt, as the cat was also mummified significantly. The process of feline mummification had six steps:
- Removal of organs
Body is stuffed with sand or packing material
Feline is placed in a sitting position
Body is wrapped tightly
Faces and designs are painted on wrappings with black ink
No chemicals, only natural dehydration