Bubastis, Egypt

In ancient Egypt, Bast (later called Bastet) was the goddess of love, joy, holidays, dance, music, fertility, and patroness of pregnant women. 
According to Egyptian mythology, it was believed to heal the sick and help the harvest ripen. Her face in the images was like a woman with the head of a cat or a lioness, with a basket in her hands, and sometimes just like a cat. Bast was the patroness of Bubastis, the city where she was revered. Built in honor of the goddess, the temple of Bast contributes much to the fame of Bubastis.
During the Greco-Roman period in Ancient Egypt a cult was widespread, at the center of which stood Bastet: sacrifice of mummified cats. Her priests collected cats and offered them to the population for sacrifices. Depending on the amount paid by the buyer, he received a mummy of a large or small cat and placed this mummy in a burial chamber specially designed for the offering of cats. The annual festivals in honor of the goddess, held in Bubastis, are considered the most spectacular processions in Egypt, attended by hundreds of thousands of worshipers.
What is left today of Bubastis is just a hill dotted with weeds and archeological excavations. It was found that visitors show the greatest interest in the so-called cat cemetery at Bubastis. The cat necropolis is a series of underground tombs plastered with clay. 
Another feature of the city is the sacred well a thousand years old, on which, according to the Christian religion, the Holy Family stopped on the way to Egypt. This gives reason to believe today that the well has a miraculous fruitful power. Women wishing to conceive fill water from the well in clay pots, which they then drink, and the vessel is broken in front of the statue of Bastes.