Saqqara : Ancient Tomb
Archaeologists in Egypt recently discovered an ancient tomb belonging to the “keeper of the secrets of royal decrees,” they announced following an excavation at Saqqara.
- Saqqara is part of the necropolis of the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis.
- In 1979 the ancient ruins of the Memphis area, including Ṣaqqārah, Abū Ṣīr, Dahshūr, Abū Ruwaysh, and the Pyramids of Giza, were collectively designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.
- Saqqara contains numerous pyramids, tombs, mastabas, temples, and other funerary monuments.
- A mastaba is an ancient Egyptian rectangular tomb structure with a flat roof and sloping sides.
- Saqqara is where the transition from the use of the mastaba as a burial site to the pyramid design that is more popularly known today took place.
- Kings and noblemen from the very first two dynasties (c.3040–2686 BC) were buried here, and this is also the location of the Step Pyramid of Djoser (c.2686–2667 BC).
- It is the oldest surviving pyramid in the world.
- Designed by the architect Imhotep, its distinctive six-tiered form marked a crucial stage in the development of pyramid construction and paved the way for the great pyramids that followed.
- The pyramids of some of the most important kings of the Old Kingdom Fifth (c.2494–2345 BC) and Sixth (c.2345–2181 BC) Dynasties are located in Saqqara.
- One of these, the pyramid of Unas (also known as Wenis; (c.2375–2345 BC), features the oldest pyramid burial chamber decorated with texts.
- Among the most important of Saqqara’s monuments is the Serapeum, a series of underground galleries in which the Apis Bulls were buried from the Eighteenth Dynasty (c.1550–1295 BC) to the Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BC).
- The Apis Bull was considered an incarnation of Ptah himself, one of the most important gods of Memphis.
