Bat

Bat is attested from the earliest records of Egyptian religious practice; her cult seat was the 7th nome of Upper Egypt (Seshesh, also called Hu or Diospolis Parva) and the centre of her worship was termed the 'Mansion of the Sistrum'. Sources describe her cult as dating to the late Predynastic period and note that by the Middle Kingdom her identity and attributes had been largely absorbed into the wider cult of Hathor.

Bat is depicted commonly with a human face bearing bovine features (cow ears and inward-curving horns) or as a woman. She is sometimes shown as a celestial bovine surrounded by stars. On sistra she often appears as the head and neck forming the handle and is represented with 'two faces' in funerary Pyramid Texts formulae. Her horns are described as curving inward, contrasted in sources with Hathor's slightly outward-curving horns.

Funerary texts and later summaries associate Bat with protective and salvific roles; a Pyramid Texts formula cited in the sources reads: 'I am Praise; I am Majesty; I am Bat with Her Two Faces; I am the One Who Is Saved, and I have saved myself from all things evil,' identifying her with protection and salvation. Modern summaries of the tradition additionally report that Bat was understood to have visionary or oracular capacities (phrased in sources as the power 'to see the past and into the future'). Her cultic presence is closely linked to the sistrum, indicating an active role in temple ritual, invocation, and liturgical sound.