The goddess Bastet is typically depicted as a cat, or as a woman with a cat’s head, in Egyptian art.
Bastet’s imagery changed over time. In early Egyptian religion she was represented as a powerful lioness or lioness-headed woman, sharing protective and warrior associations with deities such as Sekhmet. By the Third Intermediate Period, she was increasingly shown as a domestic cat or a cat-headed woman.
Her principal cult centre was Bubastis in the Nile Delta, whose name means “House of Bastet.” Egyptians associated cats with protection because they killed rodents and venomous snakes that threatened food stores and households. Bastet therefore came to represent domestic safety, fertility, childbirth and a gentler form of divine protection.
Art often shows the cat-headed goddess holding a sistrum, an ankh or an aegis. The cat depiction should not be confused with every feline deity: Sekhmet remained strongly associated with the lioness, while Mafdet could appear with a leopard or cheetah head. Bastet’s animal form is specifically the domestic cat in her later, familiar portrayal.