RESULTS OF EXCAVATIONS AT BUBASTIS. 159 
read, but it is a lasting record of the fact that Osorkon I. 
had done some work in connexion with these capitals. In the 
same way also Rameses II. put his name under the base of the 
obelisks he erected, in order that his memory should not perish 
altogether in case one of his successors should erase all the 
visible inscriptions of the sides. In my opinion, the inscrip- 
tion of Osorkon I. records, not that the king had these capitals 
sculptured, but that he raised them a second time, and he could 
not have done it if they had been standing, while if they were 
overthrown, and the temple was more or less in ruin, the fact 
is easily to be explained. 
The Twenty-second dynasty is called by Manetho the 
dynasty of the Bubastites. It is most likely that these kings 
were strangers of Libyan origin; their family had the here- 
ditary command of the guard of Libyan mercenaries, called 
the Ma or the Mashooash ; and it is natural to suppose that 
it was with the aid of his foreign troops that Shishak, the 
first of the Bubastite rulers, succeeded in ascending the throne 
of Egypt. Shishak is well known as the successful enemy of 
Rehoboam ; he conquered Jerusalem and pillaged its temples ; 
he made great constructions at Thebes, but he does not seem 
to have done anything in what is considered as his native 
city. His name has been found only on a small fragment of 
limestone. The first king of the Bubastites who adorned the 
temple with fine sculptures is a king who was little known 
until now, Osorkon I. As I said before, very likely the 
temple was m ruins in his time; he rebuilt it, or at least he 
began doing so ; he raised again the beautiful Hathor capitals, 
and went to work in the first hall, building up the walls and 
covering them with finely-carved sculptures, for which he used 
the material already on the spot, as one. may judge from 
blocks engraved on both sides; which under Rameses IT. were 
part of the basement, while under Osorkon I. they were at a 
certain height in the wall. I believe it wasin his reign that a 
change took place in the dedication of the temple. Instead 
of being a place of worship for the great gods of Hgypt, and 
chiefly for Set, of whom Rameses II. seems to have been a 
fervent adorer, it became the temple of Bast, the lion or cat- 
headed goddess, with her accompanying gods, Mahes or 
Nefertum, called her son, and Horheken, a special kind of 
Horus. I should think also that the religious custom of 
keeping cats in the temple and of burying them in holy 
ground dates from his reign. There is a considerable space 
in the mound of Tel Basta, which is nothing but a cemetery 
of cats, rectangular pits made of raw bricks, which are full of 
the bones of these animals, among which some bronzes have 
