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Photo : Einsamer Schütze — CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

The Delta and the north coast · Zagazig, Sharqia

Bubastis

The city of the cat goddess Bastet, and its cemetery of mummified cats.

€ BudgetOff the beaten track

Herodotus described Bastet's festival as Egypt's merriest: whole boatloads of drunken pilgrims coming up the Delta. What remains is a field of ruins, granite blocks, and the galleries where cats were buried by the thousand.

The extra bit

The open-air museum gathers the finest blocks: start there to make sense of the site.

Know before you go

Zagazig is an hour and a half from Cairo: the trip combines with Tanis in a day.

Directions

Tell Basta, Zagazig, Sharqia Governorate

Directions

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