Ancient Egyptian Bastet cat with necklace, cast metal + diabase, patinated and partially gilded

In the later period of ancient Egyptian history, the tendency to imitate older works of art increased to such an extent that even today it is difficult to distinguish between an original, for example from the Middle Kingdom, and a later "repeat" of the work. The search for a return to the origins was also evident in the spacious funerary palaces built in Thebes during the 26th Dynasty. Here, all the important religious texts of the past were once again preserved for posterity.