Which cat goddess was the goddess of protection, pleasure, and fertility? Bastet.
Bastet was an ancient Egyptian goddess whose worship centered on Bubastis in the Nile Delta. She was associated with protection, pregnancy, childbirth, pleasure, music, and domestic life. Egyptians connected her protective power partly with cats, valued for killing rodents and venomous snakes that threatened homes and grain stores.
Bastet’s image changed over time. In earlier periods she could appear as a fierce lioness or lioness-headed woman, roles she shared with Sekhmet. By the first millennium BCE, she was increasingly shown as a domestic cat or a woman with a cat’s head, often carrying a sistrum and an aegis. This gentler form contrasts with Sekhmet’s more destructive warrior aspect, although the two were sometimes treated as related manifestations of feline divine power.
Bastet was also linked with the Eye of Ra and with fertility. Her famous festival at Bubastis drew enormous crowds, and Egyptians dedicated large numbers of cat figurines and mummified cats to her.