Editing Bastet (section)

===Festival===
Herodotus relates that of the many solemn festivals held in Egypt, the most important and most popular one was that celebrated in Bubastis in honor of this goddess.<ref name=Herodotus59>Herodotus, Book 2, chapter 59.</ref><ref name=Herodotus137>Herodotus, Book 2, chapter 137.</ref> Each year on the day of her festival, the town was said to have attracted some 700,000 visitors, 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.<ref name=Herodotus60>Herodotus, Book 2, chapter 60.</ref> This accords well with Egyptian sources which prescribe that lioness goddesses are to be appeased with the "feasts of drunkenness".<ref name=Velde165 /> A festival of Bastet was known to be celebrated during the New Kingdom at Bubastis. The block statue from the eighteenth dynasty ({{circa|1380 BC}}) of Nefer-ka, the wab-priest of Sekhmet,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://project-min.de/home/english/restoration.html|title=restoration|website=project-min.de|access-date=2018-03-19}}</ref> provides written evidence for this. The inscription suggests that the king, [[Amenhotep III]], was present at the event and had great offerings made to the deity.