Bastet as "isheru", not too dissimilar from that surrounding the temple of the mother goddess Mut in Karnak at Thebes. These lakes were typical of temples devoted to a number of lioness goddesses who are said to represent one original goddess, daughter of the Sun-God Ra / Eye of Ra: Bastet, Mut, Tefnut, Hathor, and Sakhmet. Each of them had to be appeased by a specific set of rituals. One myth relates that a lioness, fiery and wrathful, was once cooled down by the water of the lake, transformed into a gentle cat, and settled in the temple. In the temple,
Bastet dynasties, the deity remained, but was assigned a lesser role in the pantheon by bearing the name "Bastet". This happened after Thebes became the capital of ancient Egypt, during the Eighteenth Dynasty. As they rose to great power the priests of the temple of Amun, dedicated to the primary local deity, advanced the stature of their titular deity to national prominence (Amun-Ra) and shifted the relative stature of others in the Egyptian pantheon. Diminishing her status, they began referring to the deity with the added suffix, as "Bastet", and their use of the new name was well-documented (thereby becoming very