Isis and Bastet

In "Legacy of the Cat" Gloria Stephens writes that cats were worshipped in Egypt for more than two thousand years. At first the cat was considered sacred only to the goddess Isis. It later became sacred to the great cat goddess Bastet. Indeed, the earliest portrayals of Bastet showed her as a cat-headed figure. Gradually Bastet became the most important god to all Egyptians, and the cat was held sacred and worshipped with her. The Egyptian word for cat is 'mau' which means "to see."