![]() Together these epithets, of which there are believed to be 365, one for each day of the year, would constitute a “litany in stone”, with which the pharaoh wished to pacify the goddess under her 365 different denominations. The statues have hieroglyphic inscriptions on the base or on the throne and on the dorsal pillar, which assign numerous and different epithets to the goddess. The pharaoh Sheshonq I had his cartouche inscribed on some of them. One of the most significant transfers was carried out during Dynasty XXI, when the high priest of Amon and future sovereign Pinodjem I had dozens of these statues moved to the temple of the goddess Mut in Karnak. Subsequently, starting from the Ramesside Period, some of these statues were reused and transferred to other places, both in the Valley and in the Delta. The statues were produced for the pharaoh Amenhotep III to adorn the precinct of his funerary temple in West Thebes. It is made up of two types of statue of the same size: the goddess seated on a throne with the solar disc and Uraeus on the head and the ankh in the left hand the standing goddess, crowned in the same way, has the ankh in her right hand and the uadj in the left. Connecting this narrative to the festival at Bubastis, we conclude that festivities with dancing, music and drinking honored the goddess who enjoyed the same activities.The statue represents the lioness goddess Sekhmet and constitutes a single statuary group, one of the most imposing of all the history of pharaonic Egypt. To accomplish his mission, Thot appears in the form of a baboon and uses music, dance and alcohol to please the lioness. The sun god sends Thot to guide her back to Egypt, a difficult task as the god must calm the angry lioness and keep her happy on the long journey home. For some unaccounted reason she is furious with her father and spreads fear in the deserts by her presence. They were connected to the sun god Ra, often called “Daughter of Ra” or “Eye of Ra.” The so-called “Mythos of the Eye of Ra,” preserved on three demotic papyri of the 2nd century BCE, offers deeper insight: The narrative tells the story of the daughter of Ra living as a mighty lioness far south of Egypt in the glowing desert heat. ![]() Lioness goddesses were rendered dangerous and unpredictable while, at the same time, they also were caring, protective and fierce. ![]() To this place (so say the natives) they come together year by year even to the number of seventy myriads of men and women, besides children.” (Hd. This they do by every city along the river-bank and when they come to Bubastis they hold festival celebrating great sacrifices, and more wine of grapes is consumed upon that festival than during the whole of the rest of the year. Around 450 BCE the Greek historiograph Herodotus described the temple and cult of Bastet by focusing on the famous festival regularly held in honor of the goddess: “ Now, when they are coming to the city of Bubastis they do as follows:-they sail men and women together, and a great multitude of each sex in every boat and some of the women have rattles and rattle with them, while some of the men play the flute during the whole time of the voyage, and the rest, both women and men, sing and clap their hands and when as they sail they come opposite to any city on the way they bring the boat to land, and some of the women continue to do as I have said, others cry aloud and jeer at the women in that city, some dance, and some stand up and pull up their garments.
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