3D Egyptian Cat Jewelry Please see Cat Symbolism Info Below Available in Solid Sterling Silver Item # 1715 CLEARANCE ! Solid Sterling Silver Bastet Egyptian Cat Pendant $24.00

Cat Symbolism in Ancient Egypt
During the thousands of years in which the cat has lived among human beings it has been venerated at one period as a deity, and at other times cursed as a demon. Cats have long been held sacred and linked to images of power. Egyptians named the Goddess Bast as the divine mother of cats. The cat was sacred, and to kill one might be punishable by death. Diodorus Siculus, the Greek historian, described how a Roman who killed a cat was murdered by a mob despite the pleadings of high Egyptian officials. If a cat died, from any cause whatever, its owner went into mourning, shaving his eyebrows and performing elaborate funeral rites. Cat cemeteries were established on the banks of the Nile, where the sacred animals were mummified and then laid to rest, together with vast quantities of cat mascots and cat effigies. The Egyptian term for cat was Mau, an imitation of a cats cry and a mother-syllable. Cat worship began in Egypt, where the first domesticated cats descended from a wild ancestor, felis libyca.

In her Cult of the Cat, Patricia Dale-Green says, 'Like the moon (the cat) comes to life at night, escaping from humanity and wandering over the house-tops with its eyes beaming out through the darkness.' Many people believed the cat was the child of the moon and it was said that 'the moon brought forth the cat'. From the magic of their eyes arose the belief that cats were seers with strong mediumistic powers. In the East the cat is said to bear away the souls of the dead, and in some parts of West Africa, is is accepted that the human soul passes into the body of a cat at death.

The Egyptian Goddess Bast (Bastet):
Bast is the Egyptian cat-headed goddess who rules as protectress of the pharaoh, and also of children and pregnant women. She is a solar deity, and the daughter of Ra, although the Greeks aligned her with Artemis and saw her as lunar. Cats are sacred to her and as such, were worshipped as gods in ancient Egypt. She is a sister goddess to the lion-headed Sekhmet. She is often invoked for protection.

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