this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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Historical Artifacts
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Just a community for everyone to share artifacts, reconstructions, or replicas for the historically-inclined to admire!
Generally, an artifact should be 100+ years old, but this is a flexible requirement if you find something rare and suitably linked to an era of history, not a strict rule. Anything over 100 is fair game regardless of rarity.
Generally speaking, ruins should go to !historyruins@lemmy.world
Illustrations of the past should go to !historyillustrations@lemmy.world
Photos of the past should go to !HistoryPorn@lemmy.world
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How do they know it’s a god in cat form and not just a statue of a normal cat?
Some manner of inscription, maybe? It looks like there's a symbol on its head in the link. I'm not very well informed on Egyptian religious idols, though.
Reading the PDF on their site it just says "This exceptional bronze cat represents the renowned Egyptian goddess Bastet" and then shows other statues in other collections that are virtually identical which are Bastet.
It does have a symbol, though.
It actually has two. The beetle and also a heart on a pendant necklace. I don't think the scarab identifies it as Bastet though. Here is all they say on the scarab:
Yes, this - afaik for it to be undoubtedly Bastet for like religious purposes it needed to be not a normal animal (so sigils, items, un-animal acts), but normal cats would still held symbolism bcs of Bastet.