Bastet

Landscapes are dynamic and changing realities at a geographical and cognitive level that should be studied in detail in their synchronic and diachronic aspects for the correct understanding of their role in human societies. This paper presents a case study of the toponym Ankhtawy (ꜥnḫ-tꜢwj), the ‘Life of the Two Lands’, located in the Memphite region since the Third Millennium BC. Thanks to a combination of written, archaeological, geomorphological and palaeoenvironmental evidence, an analysis has been carried out that considers the scarce and not very detailed previous studies, the topography associated with the toponym, its spellings and possible meanings and its associated deities, together with new archaeological, geomorphological and paleoenvironmental evidence. It has been found that at first Ankhtawy could not designate (part of) the city of Memphis or its necropolis, but the Wadi Abusir; only in a later date it would designate the necropolitan and cultic area of the desert of North Saqqara.

Classical Greek, Hellenistic and Roman sculpture was a rare find at Naukratis, comprising mainly small statuettes and a few fragments of full or half-life-sized statues. There are also a small number of relief sculptures from temples and grave monuments. Some Greek and Roman-style sculpture was also created from Egyptian raw materials, using Egyptian tools and techniques and sometimes displaying Egyptian subjects. An unusual group of 22 marble and limestone cats, a rare subject in Greek art, were dedicated to a 3rd-century BC temple of Boubastis in Naukratis. Parallels from a contemporary Boubasteion in Alexandria shed light on how the Greek elite at Naukratis participated in the cult of this Egyptian goddess. Her worship was associated with the dynastic cults of the deified Ptolemaic queens Arsinoe II and Berenike II, which integrated Greek and Egyptian religious practices as an expression of Ptolemaic dynastic propaganda.

PhD thesis, to Download here: https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-03178174/document

Keywords: lion, lioness, Egypt, Ancient Egypt, furniture, table, bed, chair, armchair, seat, stool, kiosk, pavilion, litter, palanquin, sledge, leopard, panther, cheetah, cat, feline, serpopard, sphinx,hippopotamus, bovine, cow, bull, Bastet, Pakhet, Menet, Mehyt, Sekhmet, Rwty, Amemet,Hathor, Mafdet, Meskhenet, Reret, Seth, Shesmetet, Chezmetet, Tefnut, Heb Sed

We introduced a new semiotic-statistical method in order to analyze the motif of a goddess standing in a boat which is set on a watercourse. This motif or scene is understood as a specific combination of some conspicuouse pictorial elements such as the attributes of the protagonist, the properties of his/her body, or the shape of the boat. The analysis is done in two steps: first, by identifying the four or five most conspicuous and rare iconic components determining the meaning of the scene which is used as a paradigm. Second, by comparing the paradigm with other scenes containing all or at least two of these components, while all possible contexts in which they appear are to be checked. Results demonstrate which combinations of decisive pictorial components belong to what kinds of Scenes, the latter turning out to be neither ritual nor mythological, but allegorical, in a specifically Egyptian way.

In this paper, the bia-throne (ḫndw-bjꜢ, ḫndw bjꜢj) in the Pyramid Texts and its possible royal sculptural parallels in the Old Kingdom are discussed. First, the meanings and functions of that kind of throne are studied, concluding that they are related to the king's resurrection and his ascension in the firmament, where he becomes the ruler among several asterisms. The same conclusion can be inferred also from the analysis of the location of the spells naming those thrones inside the pyramid of Pepy I. Second, an iconographic and iconological analysis of the lion thrones of the statues found at Khafre's lower temple at Giza has been made. From that study, it can be concluded that they are very related to the (re)generation of the king as a person and as a ruler, and that the lions (rather lionesses) represent a goddess, probably Bastet. Finally, identification between the bia-thrones in the Pyramid Texts and the lionesses-thrones of Khafre is made, from their common morphological and symbolical similarities. An important link between them is the possible use of the anorthosite gneiss as a substitute for bia, the meteoric iron of which the thrones are said to be made.

The goddess Bastet, attested since the Thinite Period onwards, plays an important role in the solar theology during the Old Kingdom as protectress, mother, wife and daughter of the sun-god Ra. In the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, she experiences a strong theological development, progressively more intense. Her new aspects are very related to the monarchy, especially as mother and wife of the king, and as northern counterpart of the goddess Hathor. This evolution, traceable since the Second Dynasty, seems to be inseparable from other socioeconomic processes, such as the great effort of agricultural colonization in the Delta, the new social and political premises regulating the relations between kingship and subjects, and the new political theology, very solar in nature, promoting a larger concentration of power on the king.

The faience industry in Rhodes has been, and still remains, the subject of much debate. The objects found
appear to form a unique phenomenon of acculturation with styles and objects taken from one or more
cultures and transplanted to another. A number of discrete groups of faience objects can now be
distinguished, but a great deal still remains to be done. In the 7th century BCE, both closed and open shapes
intended to market precious liquid were made locally, while their symbolic messages are ultimately derived
from the Egyptian world. Other objects imitate prototypes from the Near East. Amulets and scarabs present
another varied and challenging field of investigation, and recent work on the Kamiros votive deposits
presents some interesting possibilities for categorizing these. Discrete groups of faience material can now
be distinguished, and this paper is intended to show, with a restricted number of examples, what can be
achieved. Concentrating on the 7th-century BCE material from the two deposits on the acropolis of Kamiros,
this study outlines the contact with the non-Greek world that these objects suggest.

Presentation, description and interpretation of an Egyptian statuette made in bronze of the Late Period, now on the permanent exhibition of the room of Egyptian Anquities of Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid (inv. no. 2064). This figurine forms part of the first set of Egyptian antiquities of the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, coming from the Royal collections. The paper focuses on the feline aspects of the goddess Bastet, whose cult was very popular in the First Millennium BC. She was one of the goddess who symbolised the maternal sweetnes, as protector of the home and propitiatory of fecundity.

Publication (with translation of and comments of the texts) of five inscribed monuments all belonging to one man, i.e., the chief physician of Upper- and Lower Egypt, Paanmeny: Three block statues (one of them excavated at Tell el-Yahudiya), one isolated block statue head (Berlin ÄM 253), and a stone naos honouring Ptah (Berlin ÄM 21230). Paanmeny lived during the Third Intermediate Period which is not only indicated by the inscriptions. The appearance of the Berlin statue head must be compared to that of the similar statue of Ankh-renep-nefer (British Museum, EA 1007) which was excavated near Pithom and which dates to the reign of Osorkon II. The Theban ("Cachette") statues of the Third Intermediate Period differ stylistically from the few known contemporaneous statues from Lower Egypt.

The goddesses Hathor and Bastet have very prominent roles in the logoiconic programs of the royal funerary complexes of the Fourth Dynasty. Several authors have argued that they have a spatial component in them, on a territorial and cosmic level, with Hathor representing the south and Bastet the north. In addition to that, the analysis of the contexts in which they appear reveals that their acts also highlight the renewal of the person of the king, as an individual and monarch —identified with Ra, the sun—, acting as consorts and mothers of the latter. To this is added another spatial dimension, a Memphite one, which seems to have contributed to better integrating those complexes into the festive calendar of the necropolis of Memphis, where both goddesses had important cults.