Bubastis in the context of "Wadi Tumilat"

The Suez inscriptions of Darius the Great were texts written in Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian and Egyptian on five monuments erected in Wadi Tumilat, commemorating the opening of the "Canal of the Pharaohs" between the Nile and the Bitter Lakes.

One of the best preserved of these monuments was a stele of pink granite, which was discovered by Charles de Lesseps, Ferdinand de Lesseps's son, in 1866, 30 kilometres from Suez near Kabret in Egypt. It was erected by Darius the Great, king of the Achaemenid Empire (or Persia), whose reign lasted from 522 to 486 BCE. The monument, also known as the Chalouf stele (alt. Shaluf Stele), records the construction of a forerunner of the modern Suez Canal by the Persians, a canal through Wadi Tumilat, connecting the easternmost, Bubastite, branch of the Nile with Lake Timsah, which was connected to the Red Sea by natural waterways. The stated purpose of the canal was the creation of a shipping connection between the Nile and the Red Sea, between Egypt and Persia.

The Twenty-second Dynasty was an Ancient Egyptian dynasty of ancient Libyan origin founded by Shoshenq I. It is also known as the Bubastite Dynasty, since the pharaohs originally ruled from the city of Bubastis.

The Twenty-first, Twenty-second, Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-fifth dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group designation of the Third Intermediate Period.

Bastet or Bast (Ancient Egyptian: bꜣstt), also known as Ubasti or Bubastis, is a goddess of ancient Egyptian religion, possibly of Nubian origin, worshipped as early as the Second Dynasty (2890 BCE). In ancient Greek religion, she was known as Ailuros (Koine Greek: αἴλουρος, lit. 'cat').

Bastet was worshipped in Bubastis in Lower Egypt, originally as a lioness goddess, a role shared by other deities such as Sekhmet. Eventually Bastet and Sekhmet were characterized as two aspects of the same goddess, with Sekhmet representing the powerful warrior and protector aspect, and Bastet, who increasingly was depicted as a cat, representing a gentler aspect.