Whom he calls Bubastis and equates with the Greek goddess Artemis, Herodotus also relates that of the many solemn festivals held in Egypt, the most important and most popular one was that celebrated in Bubastis in honour of the goddess. Each year on the day of her festival, the town is said to have attracted some 700,000 visitors ("as the people of the place say"), both men and women (but not children), who arrived in numerous crowded ships. The women engaged in music, song and dance on their way to the place, great sacrifices were made and prodigious amounts of wine were drunk, more than was the case throughout the year. This accords well with Egyptian sources which prescribe that leonine goddesses are to be appeased with the "feasts of drunkenness".
The aegis usually resembling a collar or gorget embellished with a lioness head, the goddess Bast was sometimes depicted holding a ceremonial sistrum in one hand and an aegis in the other—. Bast was a goddess of the sun throughout most of Ancient Egyptian history, but later when she was changed into a cat goddess rather than a lioness, she was changed to a goddess of the moon by Greeks occupying Ancient Egypt toward the end of its civilization. Bast also is known as Ailuros in Greek mythology.
The aegis usually resembling a collar or gorget embellished with a lioness head, the goddess Bast was sometimes depicted holding a ceremonial sistrum in one hand and an aegis in the other—. Bast was a goddess of the sun throughout most of Ancient Egyptian history, but later when she was changed into a cat goddess rather than a lioness, she was changed to a goddess of the moon by Greeks occupying Ancient Egypt toward the end of its civilization. Bast also is known as Ailuros in Greek mythology.