ABSTRACT
A fine bronze cat was purchased at Cairo by M. Barrere, then agent and consul-general of France in Egypt. It is a fine piece, of very sure design and careful execution. It is the Egyptian cat in all its elegance. She dwelt by preference in the city that bore her name, Poubastit, the Bubastis of classical writers. Her temple, at which Cheops and Chephren had worked while they were building their pyramids, was rebuilt by the Pharaohs of the XXIInd Dynasty. Herodotus was told that 700,000 persons, equal numbers of men and women, not reckoning little children, went thus every year to Bubastis. During the Greek period the figures were in bronze or in painted and gilded wood surmounted by a cats head in bronze. Yet judging from the roundness of certain forms, the author's recognize the style of the second Saite Period, and the piece is to be attributed either to the Nectanebos, or the first Ptolemies.
