The goddess Bastet was usually represented as a woman with the head of a domesticated cat. However, up until 1000 BC she was portrayed as a lioness. Bastet was the daughter of Re (or Ra which every way you want to portray it), the sun god. It may have been through him that she acquired her feline characteristics. When Re destroyed his enemy Aepe, he was usually depicted as a cat. As portrayed as a cat, she was connected with the moon (her son Khonsuwas the god of the moon). When shown as a lioness, she is associated with sunlight.

Bastet was the goddess of fire, cats, of the home and pregnant women. According to one myth, she was the personification of the soul of Isis. She was also called the "Lady of the East". As such, her counterpart as "Lady of the West" was Sekhment.

Bastet seemed to have two sides to her personality, docile and aggressive. Her docile and gentle side was displayed in her duties as a protector of the home, and pregnant women. Her aggressive and vicious nature was exposed in the accounts of battles in which the pharaoh was said to have slaughtered the enemy as Bastet slaughtered her victims.