ARTIC-EG
Walters Art Museum (Egyptian) · statue
Bastet Holding an Aegis
Description
<p>The ancient Egyptians donated figures of their gods for use in temple rituals; smaller images served as amulets to ensure divine protection. Goddesses in particular were viewed as protective deities. From earliest times, Egyptian venerated a wide circle of feline-headed female deities, such as Sakhmet, Tefnut, Wadjet, and Bastet. <p /> <p />This statuette of a standing Bastet has an usekh-collar with a lioness head in her hand as a protective symbol. The inscription on the base names the donor of the figure.</p><p>For the latest information about this object, <cite><a href='https://purl.thewalters.org/art/54.409' rel='external'>Bastet Holding an Aegis</a></cite>, visit the Online Collection of the Walters Art Museum.</p>
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A small bronze Egyptian deity figure in the form of a cat-headed goddess holding a protective aegis/equipment against her body.
The image shows a standing, human-proportioned figure with a feline head (cat ears prominent) rendered in dark bronze. The figure wears a long, flared kilt with dense incised vertical and horizontal detailing across the body and legs. One arm is raised forward at chest level while the other is bent downward, suggesting the goddess holds an object or protective panel close to her torso (consistent with an aegis). Behind/around the torso is a raised, rounded element that may represent the aegis or a protective emblem. The hands and facial features are modeled in low relief, with the head and ears standing out clearly. The base includes an applied band of linear motifs or short hieroglyphic-like marks, though individual signs are too small/unclear to identify confidently from this image. No Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is visible. Overall surface appears uniformly metallic with worn highlights; no clear gilding can be confirmed from the image, but the catalogued material indicates silver/electrum accents.
religious
Late Period to Ptolemaic period (likely; exact date uncertain from image alone)
good
Deities
Bastet (cat-headed goddess)
Materials
bronze (dark patinated surface)possible silver/electrum inlays (not clearly confirmable from photo)
Signs
unidentified hieroglyphic-like linear band on base ×6
Inscriptions (2)
Inscription #1
English description
[Translation] Bastet may give life to Amen-er-dj-s, son of the priest of Amun Pefti-w-
Inscription #2
English description
[m]-awj-Neith, born of the lady of the house Mut-er-dj-s.
Cross-references (2)
- Walters-AccNum 54.409 tier-2
- Walters-id 17195 tier-2
Similar inscriptions · by content embedding
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Walters Art Museum (Egyptian).
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.