The Serapeum of Saqqara was the ancient Egyptian burial place for sacred bulls of the Apis cult at Memphis. It was believed that the bulls were incarnations of the god Ptah, which would become immortal after death as Osiris-Apis, a name which evolved to Serapis () in the Hellenistic period, and Userhapi () in Coptic. It is one of the animal catacombs in the Saqqara necropolis, which also contains the burial vaults of the mother cows of the Apis, the Iseum.
Over a timespan of approximately 1400 years, from the New Kingdom of Egypt to the end of the Ptolemaic Period, at least sixty Apis are attested to have been interred at the Serapeum. For the earliest burials, isolated tombs were constructed. As the cult gained importance, underground galleries were dug that connected subsequent burial chambers. Above ground, the main temple enclosure was supplemented by shrines, workshops, housing and administrative quarters.
From the Late Period onward, most Apis were buried in large sarcophagi, which weigh around and have lids. They were moved with the help of winches, rollers and levers. To lower them into their final position the chambers were first filled with sand, which was then gradually removed. Only four of the 24 surviving sarcophagi are inscribed. The quality of the inscriptions varies, the ones of Amasis II were beautifully executed, whereas those on an anonymous sarcophagus were only crudely scratched on the polished surface.
The Serapeum was closed in the beginning of the Roman period, after 30 BC. In the subsequent centuries large-scale looting took place. Many of the superstructures were dismantled, the burial vaults broken into, and most of the mummified Apis and their opulent burial goods removed.
In 1850 Auguste Mariette rediscovered the Serapeum, and excavated it the following years. He found two undisturbed Apis burials, as well as thousands of objects related to centuries of cult activity. These included commemorative stela with dates relating to the life and death of the Apis and the construction of their burial vaults. This data was crucial for the establishment of an Egyptian chronology in the 19th century.
The Greater Vaults of the Serapeum, known for the large sarcophagi of the mummified bulls, are accessible to visitors.
History Use The Apis cult dates back to very early times, possibly founded by pharaoh Menes, around 3,000 BC.
The most ancient burials at the Serapeum, found in isolated tombs, date back to the reign of Amenhotep III of the Eighteenth Dynasty in the
Khaemweset, working as an administrator during the reign of his father Ramesses II (1279–1213 BC) in the Nineteenth Dynasty, ordered a tunnel with side chambers – now known as the "Lesser Vaults" – to be excavated, for the burial of the Apis bulls.
A second gallery of chambers, now called the "Greater Vaults", was commenced under Psamtik I (664–610 BC) of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty and extended during the Ptolemaic dynasty to approximately in length along with a parallel service tunnel. From Amasis II to the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty, the sarcophagi for the Apis bulls were made of hard stone, weighing as much as each, including the lid.
A long avenue, flanked by 370-380 sphinxes, likely was built under Nectanebo I, (379/8–361/0 BC) the founder of the Thirtieth Dynasty (the last native one).
Disuse
The Serapeum was abandoned at the beginning of the Roman Period, shortly after 30 BC. Strabo (64 BC–30 AD) noted that some of the Sphinxes of the dromos had been covered in sand by the wind. Apis continued to be buried elsewhere in the Saqqara-Abusir region until the 3rd century AD. Arnobius, around 300 AD, mentioned that the Egyptians penalized anyone who revealed the places in which Apis lay hidden.
The looting of the Serapeum started at a time when hieroglyphs could still be read, as the names of the bulls were scratched out on many of the stelae. All tombs, except two, were plundered and desecrated. The bull mummies were torn to pieces, and stones were piled on the sarcophagi as a sign of contempt.
Rediscovery The temple was discovered by Auguste Mariette, who had gone to Egypt to collect Coptic-language 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 dunes, cleared the sand and followed the avenue to the site. In November the following year he entered the catacombs for the first time.
Unfortunately, Mariette left most of his notes unpublished. Many of them got destroyed when the Nile flooded the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities at Boulaq in 1878, and the original diary of the excavations was borrowed by Eugène Grébaut but never returned. Gaston Maspero released one volume of Le Sérapeum de Memphis based on the surviving manuscripts in 1882, a year after Mariette's death. Tourism The Serapeum was opened to visitors shortly after excavations, in the second half of the 19th century. Yet sands quickly made all parts but the Greater Vaults inaccessible.
Prior to the installation of electric lamps, the tunnels were illuminated by a series of candles on wooden stands, and occasionally bright magnesium light was used. In 1862 the then Prince of Wales, Edward VII visited the Serapeum and had luncheon with his party in one of the sarcophagi.
The 1992 Cairo earthquake caused cracks to appear on the tunnel walls, and the Serapeum was closed to the public. In 2001 conservation work started, stabilizing the roofs and walls, which lasted until 2012.
The majority of the Greater Vaults is accessible to tourists nowadays.
Renewed excavations Due to the collapsed ceiling of the Lesser Vaults, Mariette left several tens of meters unexplored. In the mid 1980s, Mohamed Ibrahim Ali was the first to work there again, but he also had to give up because of the danger of collapse. In 2020 a mission began to remove the sands above the Lesser Vaults and to stabilize the bedrock, so that excavation work could be finally carried out.
Rituals
Four events marked the career of an Apis: birth, installation, death and burial. Diodorus Siculus () reported that the bulls were honored as gods and consecrated to Osiris, and seem to be connected to the Sed festival.
Birth and installation After the previous Apis had died the priests then sought out the young bull the soul of Osiris had migrated to, by identifying certain bodily marks. Herodotus reported that it needed to be black, with a three-cornered white spot on its forehead, the likeness of an eagle on its back, double tail-hairs and a knot under its tongue. According to Aelian each of these marks had a specific meaning; They symbolized, for example, the stars, the shape of the crescent moon and universe, and when the Nile would rise.
When the newly born Apis was found, the people stopped mourning. The calf was kept at Nilopolis for forty days, after which a barge with a gilded stall brought it to the Temple of Ptah (later Hephaestus) at Memphis. For the next forty days only women were allowed to look at the Apis, who revealed their generative parts to it. But at all other times women were forbidden in its presence.
The mother-cows were said to have been made pregnant by the light of heaven or the moonlight, and could never conceive again. They were kept with the Apis at Memphis and buried in their own catacomb, the Iseum, under a kilometre (0.6 mi) north-east of the Serapeum.
Death and burial When an Apis died in the early days of the Serapeum, it was at least partially consumed and the remains conserved in a bituminous mass prior to interment. In the Late Period, the time of the first large sarcophagi in the Greater Vaults, the burial ceremonies lasted for 70 days. According to the Apis Papyrus, the bulls were embalmed for 68 days, and in the last two days a series of funerary precession were held, the final one terminating in the Serapeum.
The bulls were buried in splendor, reportedly 100 talents ( of silver) were spent by the caretakers for the obsequies at the time of Diodorus, in the first century BC.
Sarcophagi
Nowadays 24 sarcophagi remain in the Greater Vaults. The oldest dates to the last great native ruler Amasis II, around 550 BC. The final was made some 500 years later, during the reign of the first Roman emperor Augustus. Most are over in width and height and almost twice as long. They weigh around , excluding their lids which are about half as heavy. The winches, rollers and rails found in the Serapeum might have been used to transport the stones through the narrow tunnels. The sarcophagi were lowered into their final position by removing sand the burial chambers were filled with beforehand. All surviving coffers are made out of "costly stone" (granite, basalt, diorite, etc.), whereas the older sarcophagi, which are now lost, may have been of limestone, Gunn argued. Four bear inscriptions (dedications and/or spells of the pyramid texts), two of which have additional decorations.
Sarcophagi of similar type and dimensions were found in the Bucheum, the burial vaults of the Buchis bulls at Armant.
Weight and dimensions
Linant de Bellefonds calculated one of the large sarcophagi of the Greater Vaults to have a total mass of at most: for the body and for the lid. The stone had external dimensions of in height and width, and in length. Internally, the rectangular hollow was high, wide and long. The lid had a height of .
DimensionsVolumeLengthWidthHeightSarcophagusBoxHollow - = LidLidCut edges - =
Method of transport Mariette recognized traces of rollers on the floor of the galleries, and found two wooden horizontal winches, each operated with eight levers, in one of the niches. Heinrich Brugsch, visiting the Serapeum in 1853, noted that the "double-rails", on which the sarcophagi were rolled in, were still clearly preserved on the floor of the Ptolemaic service tunnel and the following passages.
The floors of the burial chambers lie below that of the hallway, thus the sarcophagi had to be lowered to their final positions. Mariette describes that the rooms would be filled with sand to the level of the hallway so that the sarcophagi could be moved in horizontally, then the sand would be gradually removed to gently lower them. For further protection, the ancient Egyptians cut recesses into the bedrock, about deep, with the exact width and length of the sarcophagi. A special niche on each side allowed workers to remove the sand under the stones. Mariette found one sarcophagus that had only partially been let down into its recess, and conducted an experiment to test the aforementioned method. He was able to lower it with perfect regularity, even though its hollow was filled with rubble.
According to a stela found in the Serapeum, it took 28 working days to transport one of the sarcophagi and its lid into its burial chamber, in the 37th year of Ptolemy II, circa 247 BC.
Inscriptions and decorations Three of the 24 sarcophagi that remain in the Greater Vaults bear dedications by Amasis II, Cambyses II, and Khabash respectively; a fourth, inscribed with cartouches left empty, possibly dates to Ptolemy XII or Cleopatra. Amasis II
A red granite sarcophagus was dedicated by Amasis II (). It is very well crafted, with the exterior of the body being embellished with panelling and a spell of the pyramid texts running round close to the upper edge. The symbols were coloured green, except the white-black Apis sign. The lid was separated from the coffer and now rests near the entrance ramp. It also bears an inscription, though no colour remains.
Cambyses II
Blocking the original entrance to the Greater Vaults is the "grey granite" sarcophagus dedicated by Cambyses II (), first Persian ruler of Egypt. Only its lid is inscribed.
Khabash