Here are a couple of stories I found in The Independent that may be of wider interest.

The first one concerns the discovery of the remains of Queen Eadgyth (pronounced Edith) in Germany. Eadgyth was a princess of Wessex. She was the granddaughter of Alfred the Great, and sister of Athelstan, the man generally credited with uniting the Saxon kingdoms of Britain to create England. She was married to Otto I, the Holy Roman Emperor, in 929, and miraculously (pun intended) her tomb appears not to have been robbed by medieval relic hunters.

The news services over here are very excited because Eadgyth’s remains, if proved genuine, will be the oldest known relics (again careful world choice) of a member of the British Royal Family.

Well, apart from the ones in that tomb in Glastonbury Abbey, of course. 🙂

The other story is about the discovery of a temple to the cat goddess Bastet in Egypt. This one dates from the time of King Ptolemy III, and the newspaper report states that the temple belonged to his queen, Berenike. I would put this forward as evidence that women have always worshiped cats, except that there is nothing in the article to connect the temple with Queen Berenike except that it is devoted to a cat goddess.

Still, with any luck replica Bastet statues from the temple will turn up in the British Museum sometime soon. I have friends who could do with one right now. Neil, Natania: thinking of you.