Bubastis or Tell Basta ( in Arabic ) is the famous modern name for the site of Per Bastet the Domain of Bastet which in ancient times was called the home of the cult of the cat goddess Bastet, an ancient time they consider a daughter of the sun god. The Greeks called this city in the eastern delta Bubastis. It was visited in the 5th century B.C. by the Greek historian Herodotus, who described the city as a beautiful temple on low ground in the center of the city, surrounded by tree-lined canals and giving the impression of being on an island. A stone paved road led from a Hermes temple to a huge carved gate that dominated the entrance to the Baste temple, and inside was a shrine with a statue of the goddess.
Herodotus vividly reported the annual festival of the goddess Bastet, at which an estimated 700,000 Egyptian pilgrims would visit the site. Many details of Herodotus’ description were confirmed by Edouard Naville’s investigation of the Temple of Bastet for the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1887-9.
Although it was already occupied by the dynasty IV until the end of Roman times, the city reached its importance in the third interim period and was the capital of the 18th Lower Egyptian Nome in the late period.
From the earliest remains reusable blocks with the names of the kings of the dynasty IV were found – Khufu and Khafre apparently began cult temples here. Tell Basta extends over a large area halved by a road, with the sites of the Ka temples of Teti and Pepy I of Dynasty VI on the west side, but few scattered remains of columns mark the almost completely disappeared structures. A cemetery of the Old Kingdom has been uncovered near the northern edge of the site, as has an even earlier protodynastic tomb.
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