Bastet worship changed from being a lioness deity into being predominantly a major cat deity. Because domestic cats tend to be tender and protective of their offspring, Bastet was also regarded as a good mother, and she was sometimes depicted with numerous kittens. Consequently, a woman who wanted children sometimes wore an amulet showing the goddess with kittens, the number of which indicated her own desired number of children. The native Egyptian rulers were replaced by Greeks during an occupation of Egypt in the Ptolemaic Dynasty that lasted almost 300 years. The Greeks sometimes equated Bastet with one of their goddesses,
Eye of Ra again at nightfall. The solar Eye is said to assist in this effort, slaughtering the gods for Ra to eat. The red light of dawn therefore signifies the blood produced by this slaughter. In the myth called the Destruction of Mankind, related in the "Book of the Heavenly Cow" from the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC), Ra uses the Eye as a weapon against humans who have rebelled against his authority. He sends the Eye—Hathor, in her aggressive manifestation as the lioness goddess Sekhmet—to massacre them. She does so, but after the first day of her rampage, Ra decides to