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Bronze, height 19-3/4 inches
Egypt, Ptolemaic Period, 304-33 bc
The cat was sacred to the goddess Bastet. In later periods, cat cemeteries sprang up at Bubastis, her principal cult center, and elsewhere. Thousands of cat mummies were buried there is special cemeteries. These animals were not housepets: the cats, raised in the temple precincts, were ritually killed (probably strangled) and the mummified remains sold to worshippers who offered them as votives to the goddess. Some of the cat mummies had hollow-cast bronze coffins like this one.
Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust, 1917.998
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