Serapeum of Saqqara

The Serapeum of Saqqara is a serapeum located north west of the Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, a necropolis near Memphis in Lower Egypt. It was a burial place of Apis bulls, which were incarnations of the deity Ptah. It was believed that the bulls became immortal after death as Osiris Apis, a name shortened to Serapis in the Hellenic period.

The most ancient burials found at this site date back to the reign of Amenhotep III, the ninth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty during the 1350s B.C.

Working as an administrator during the reign of his father, Khaemweset, a son of Ramesses II (1279–1213 B.C.) of the nineteenth dynasty, ordered that a tunnel be excavated through one of the mountains at the site and designed with side chambers to contain large granite sarcophagi weighing up to 70 tonnes each, to hold the mummified remains of the bulls. A second tunnel, approximately 350 m in length, 5 m tall and 3 m wide (1,148.3×16.4×9.8 ft), was excavated under Psamtik I (664 – 610 B.C.) of the twenty-sixth dynasty and later used by the Ptolemaic dynasty.

The long boulevard leading to the ceremonial site, flanked by 600 sphinxes, likely was built under Nectanebo I, (379/8–361/0 B.C.) the founder of the thirtieth dynasty (the last native one).

The temple was discovered by Auguste Mariette, who had gone to Egypt to collect coptic manuscripts, but later grew interested in the remains of the Saqqara necropolis. In 1850, Mariette found the head of one sphinx sticking out of the shifting desert sand dunes, cleared the sand and followed the boulevard to the site. After using explosives to clear rocks blocking the entrance to the catacomb, he excavated most of the complex. Unfortunately, his notes of the excavation were lost, which has complicated the use of these burials in establishing Egyptian chronology.

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