Serapeum of Saqqara: Burial Vaults of the Apis Bulls

The Serapeum of Saqqara is the underground burial place of the Apis bulls, the sacred animals of the god Ptah of Memphis, in the great necropolis of Saqqara south of modern Cairo. Bulls were buried in the area from at least the reign of Amenhotep III, around 1360 BC, until the Ptolemaic period, and from the 7th century BC in vast rock-cut galleries lined with stone coffins. Rediscovered by Auguste Mariette in 1850–1851, it is one of the most impressive and most misunderstood monuments of ancient Egypt.

The cult of the Apis

The Apis was a living bull kept in a special enclosure at the temple of Ptah in Memphis, the old capital of Egypt. Priests chose it by distinctive markings, such as a white triangle on the forehead on a black coat. It was regarded as the herald and living image of Ptah, gave oracles, and appeared in festivals.

When an Apis died, the whole land mourned. The animal was embalmed over about 70 days, like a human, and buried in a stone coffin, and the search began for a successor. In death the bull was identified with the god Osiris as Osiris-Apis. Under the Ptolemies this figure developed into the god Serapis, whose name gave the site its Greek name, Serapeion.

From single tombs to galleries

The earliest known Apis burials at Saqqara date to the reign of Amenhotep III, when bulls were placed in separate tombs with chapels above them. The arrangement changed under Ramesses II, whose son Khaemwaset, High Priest of Ptah at Memphis, created the first shared underground gallery around year 30 of his father’s reign, roughly 1250 BC. Khaemwaset is often described as an early “Egyptologist” because he also restored older monuments in the region. This section is called the Lesser Vaults.

In year 52 of Psamtik I, around 612 BC, a new and much larger system, the Greater Vaults, was begun. Its corridors together run for several hundred metres through the rock, with side chambers cut on either side. Later kings, including the Persian ruler Cambyses II and the Ptolemies, continued to use and extend it.

The great sarcophagi

The Greater Vaults contain 24 huge stone sarcophagi, cut from granite and other hard stones. Each is a box about 4 metres long with a separate lid, and each, with its lid, is commonly estimated to weigh some 60 to 80 tonnes, though figures vary. Several carry inscriptions of the kings who provided them, including Amasis II and Cambyses II, though many are uninscribed.

Almost all had been opened and robbed long before modern times. Above ground, a temple and an avenue of sphinxes led to the entrance, and under the Ptolemies the area around the Serapeum became a busy religious quarter with chapels, priests’ houses and lodgings for pilgrims.

Mariette’s discovery

In 1850 the young French scholar Auguste Mariette, sent to Egypt to buy Coptic manuscripts for the Louvre, noticed a sphinx’s head protruding from the sand at Saqqara, the cemetery that also holds the Step Pyramid of Djoser. He recalled a passage by the Greek writer Strabo describing a temple of Serapis approached by sphinxes half-buried in sand, and began to dig.

Clearing the avenue, Mariette reached the Greater Vaults and entered them in November 1851. He also found an intact burial from the time of Khaemwaset and more than a thousand votive stelae left by priests and pilgrims. Many of these stelae, which record Apis births, installations and deaths by regnal year, went to the Louvre. They are vital evidence for the chronology of the Third Intermediate and Late Periods. Mariette’s discoveries led to his appointment as head of Egypt’s new antiquities service in 1858.

Myths and facts

The size of the sarcophagi has made the Serapeum a favourite of fringe theories claiming it was made by a lost advanced civilisation with machine tools. The evidence is clear that this is not so. Dated inscriptions on the coffins and stelae tie the galleries to known kings, and Egyptians had worked granite with copper tools, abrasive sand and stone pounders for more than two thousand years before. The empty coffins reflect ancient robbery, not a mysterious purpose.

The Serapeum has been closed for long periods for restoration and is now open to visitors again. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Memphis and its Necropolis.

Timeline

• c. 1360 BC: Earliest known Apis burials at Saqqara under Amenhotep III.
• c. 1250 BC: Khaemwaset creates the Lesser Vaults.
• c. 612 BC: Psamtik I begins the Greater Vaults.
• 524 BC: An Apis burial is made in the reign of the Persian king Cambyses II.
• 305–30 BC: The Ptolemies extend the complex and promote the cult of Serapis.
• 1850: Auguste Mariette finds the avenue of sphinxes.
• November 1851: Mariette enters the Greater Vaults.

Why it matters

The Serapeum shows how a single animal cult could be sustained by the Egyptian state for more than a thousand years, across native, Persian and Greek dynasties. Its stelae help fix the dates of kings, and its discovery launched the career of the man who built Egypt’s first national antiquities service.