Bubastis
archaeological site in Egypt
Bubastis (Bohairic Coptic: Ⲡⲟⲩⲃⲁⲥϯ Poubasti; Greek: Βούβαστις Boubastis or Βούβαστος Boubastos), also known in Arabic as Tell-Basta or in Egyptian as Per-Bast, was an ancient Egyptian city. Bubastis is often identified with the biblical Pi-Beseth (Hebrew: פי-בסת py-bst, Ezekiel 30:17). It was the capital of its own nome, located along the River Nile in the Delta region of Lower Egypt, and notable as a center of worship for the feline goddess Bastet, and therefore the principal depository in Egypt of mummies of cats.
Its ruins are located in the suburbs of the modern city of Zagazig.
Etymology
The name of Bubastis in Egyptian is Pr-Bȝst.t, conventionally pronounced Per-Bast but its Earlier Egyptian pronunciation can be reconstructed as /ˈpaɾu-buˈʀistit/. It is a compound of Egyptian pr (“house") and the name of the goddess Bastet; thus the phrase means "House of Bast". In later forms of Egyptian, sound shifts had altered the pronunciation. In Bohairic Coptic, the name is rendered Ⲡⲟⲩⲃⲁⲥϯ, Ⲡⲟⲩⲁⲥϯ or Ⲃⲟⲩⲁⲥϯ.
Cult of Bastet
Bubastis was centered on the Temple of Bastet (Pr-Bast; House of Bastet).
The Cult of Bastet worshipping the feline goddess Bastet developed and the city was sometimes called Bubastis after the city, who the Greeks identified with Artemis.
“Bubastis” enters the record as archaeological site in Egypt. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bubastis, archaeological and site can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bubastis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.