Cats soon came to be so highly valued that, if fire broke out in a house, the cat would be the first to be rescued. When a cat died, the owners would cut off their hair or shave off their eyebrows as a symbol of morning. The main shrine of Bast was in Bubastis, the city of the goddess on the lower Nile, and here the cat was given particular honour and reverence, as a source of human good fortune and divine blessing. As the the symbol of Bast, the cat goddess, it was worshipped as the guardian of the home, and protector of women and children. In later times, her divinity was extended to make her goddess of elegance, grace, coquetry, sensual love and pleasure. Even when the Pharaohs burst upon Egypt in 1000 BC, and 500 years later when the Persians invaded under King Cambyses, the cat goddess was spared and her cats continued to be worshipped as before.
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