BASTAH, city located in the Eastern Delta just south of al-
Zaqaziq in the province of Sharqiyyah. In Egyptian the city was
known as Per-Bastet (the domain of Bastet, the lion goddess). A
powerful political center, Bastah provided the kings of the
Twenty-second Dynasty (945-712 B.C.) and served as the capital
of the eighteenth Lower Egyptian nome during the Late Period
(712-332 B.C.). The Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the
fifth century, knew the city as Boubastis and referred to it
often, describing its temples and other sights. At the location
of the ancient Egyptian settlement, excavators have uncovered
temples of Bastet, Keti, Hori, Pepy, Atum, and Mihos, as well as
tombs and cat cemeteries. Coptic sources, which give the name of
the city as Bouasti or Pouasti, record a long Christian
tradition for the place. Athanasius mentions that the city had a
Melitian bishop as early as A.D. 325 (Apologia Secunda II.71, in
Athanasius Werke, Vol. 2, p. 150). Other sources speak of
orthodox bishops in this early