Бубастис: Древний город кошек в дельте Нила.

Archaeological site in Egypt
the character in Watchmen

Bubastis (Bohairic Coptic: Ⲡⲟⲩⲃⲁⲥϯ Poubasti; Greek: Βούβαστις Boubastis or Βούβαστος Boubastos), also known in Arabic as Tell Basta or in Egyptian as Per Bast, was an ancient Egyptian city. Bubastis is often identified with the biblical Pi Beseth ( py bst, Ezekiel 30:17). It was the capital of its own nome, located along the River Nile in the Delta region of Lower Egypt, and notable as a center of worship for the feline goddess Bastet, and therefore the principal depository in Egypt of mummies of cats. Its ruins are located in the suburbs of the modern city of Zagazig.

The name of Bubastis in Egyptian is Pr Bȝst. t, conventionally pronounced Per Bast but its Earlier Egyptian pronunciation can be reconstructed as /ˈpaɾu buˈʀistit/. It is a compound of Egyptian (“house") and the name of the goddess Bastet; thus the phrase means "House of Bast". In later forms of Egyptian, sound shifts had altered the pronunciation. In Bohairic Coptic, the name is rendered Ⲡⲟⲩⲃⲁⲥϯ, Ⲡⲟⲩⲁⲥϯ or Ⲃⲟⲩⲁⲥϯ.

Bubastis served as the capital of the nome of Am Khent, the 18th nome of Lower Egypt. Bubastis was situated southwest of Tanis, upon the eastern side of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile. The nome and city of Bubastis were allotted to the Calasirian division of the Egyptian war caste.

In a later account by the Greek historian Manetho, it's stated that a "chasm opened near Bubastis and many perished" during the reign of Hotepsekhemwy in the Second Dynasty.

In the Middle Kingdom, Tell Basta was the site of a large mudbrick palace (16,000 sqm) dated to the Twelfth Dynasty. It has been thought to be a residence of Amenemhat III. A limestone lintel shows the king during his Heb Sed Festival.

Following the Twelfth Dynasty, the Middle Kingdom faded out. At Bubastis, a red granite architrave belonged to Sekhemre Khutawy Khabaw. In another monument found at Tanis, he is mentioned along with Hor.

It became a royal residence after Shoshenq I, the first ruler and founder of the 22nd Dynasty, became pharaoh in 943 BC. Bubastis was its height during this dynasty and the 23rd. It declined after the conquest by Cambyses II in 525 BC, which heralded the end of the Saite 26th Dynasty and the start of the Achaemenid Empire. The Twenty Second Dynasty of Egyptian monarchs consisted of nine, or, according to Eusebius of three Bubastite kings, and during their reigns the city was one of the most considerable places in the Delta. Immediately to the south of Bubastis were the allotments of land with which Psamtik I rewarded the services of his Ionian and Carian mercenaries; and on the northern side of the city commenced the Canal of the Pharaohs, which Pharaoh Necho II began (but never finished) to go between the Nile and the Red Sea.

The tomb of the late New Kingdom vizier Iuty was discovered in December 1964 in the "Cemetery of the Nobles" of Bubastis by the Egyptian archaeologist Shafik Farid. Since 2008, the German Egyptian "Tell Basta Project" has been conducting excavations at Bubastis. Previously, in March 2004, a well preserved copy of the Decree of Canopus was discovered in the city.