The Serapeum of Saqqara (Part 1 of 5: Origins)

In this new series of five parts, I’m going to be discussing one of the most enigmatic sites in all of Egypt – the Serapeum of Saqqara. In this, Part 1, I’m going to tell you a little about this extraordinary site and the even more astounding things it contains. I will also relate the story of how it was rediscovered.

The Serapeum of Saqqara

Part 1 of 5: Origins

On my first trip to Egypt, like everyone, I was astounded by seeing the pyramids for the first time but, when I got home, I was surprised to find that the place I was most affected by and drawn to research, was an Egyptian site that I had never heard of before my visit.

The Serapeum of Saqqara is undoubtedly one of the most enigmatic sites in all of Egypt. No less a person than Aiden Dodson, Honorary Professor of Egyptology at the University of Bristol, regards it as, ‘the most important monument in the history of Egypt’, which, if you consider which other monuments may be found in that country, is quite a statement! 

So, why do so few people know of its existence? For me, it feels like the secrecy is deliberate. Even the guidebook, which I bought at the site, entitled ‘The Treasure of Saqqara’, only gets to the Serapeum on page 69 (of an 80 page book) and devotes just a single page to a description of what is, for me, an exceptional archaeological discovery and an intriguing mystery.

Before I get to what my own group experienced in their visit (which, just to keep you in suspense, I will not be exploring until the final part of this series – Part 5), I want to share something with you about the history of the Serapeum and what I have discovered about its origins.

The Serapeum

The Serapeum is located north west of the Pyramid of Djoser (the famous ‘Step Pyramid’ in my photo, above), near the city of Memphis, in Lower Egypt. The Serapeum is, essentially, a series of underground tunnels, which were excavated through the mountainside – an extremely impressive feat of engineering in itself, even aside from the extraordinary things that it was discovered to house…

For, in most of the side chambers off the main corridor, there is a large, granite box. 

So far, this sounds pretty much like any of the thousands of other Egyptian tombs, doesn’t it? 

But things start to turn strange when you discover that each of the 24 stone boxes within the Serapeum weighs between 70 and 100 tonnes, that each is constructed with minute precision and that the surfaces were polished to a mirror-like sheen. In addition, there is the fact that, without the merest shadow of a doubt, we have been consistently lied to about what these boxes are and when they were constructed.

Since such obvious care was taken over the colossal boxes, it is a little surprising to find that they were left in such a rough-cut, undecorated set of tunnels (see our guide Gad’s photograph at the start of this blog). There are plenty of Egyptian tombs that are stunning, the walls being elaborately decorated with depictions of the life of the gods and the pharaohs. Yet these boxes were hidden in the ground, unadorned and, it feels, unloved.

If you think that perhaps the boxes were moved from somewhere more elaborate, I’m afraid you would be mistaken. For, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the boxes were completed on site. 

The best evidence for this comes from the rough box and lid, which was abandoned in one of the tunnels, which indicates that the blocks were shaped roughly outside – maybe before they were even shipped from the quarries, as it is estimated that this would have reduced the raw material’s weight by about 20 tonnes. It is also possible that the boxes were finished inside in order to achieve the precise measurements that were, for some reason, required – since the controlled environment of the Serapeum would have avoided temperature fluctuations, which might have subtly warped the stone.

The mystery of why the tunnels were so plain but the boxes so beautiful continues to mystify all those who discover them.

The Discovery – Auguste Mariette

It appears that, in 24 AD, the Greek geographer, Strabo, was the first explorer to rediscover the Serapeum but that it must have been allowed to disappear again beneath the sands. 

There it remained, lost again for centuries, until its chance rediscovery by the French archaeologist, Auguste Mariette, in 1850. 

Mariette, nearing the end of a largely fruitless Egyptian expedition, was guided to the site, which would make him the most famous Egyptologist of his day, by local Bedouin. 

Mariette’s first discovery was the head of a sphinx, which was sticking out of the sand. When he began to excavate, Mariette was astonished to slowly uncover the fact that this small sphinx was not alone but was part of a long boulevard of some 600 sphinxes. It would later emerge that these had been built much, much later than the Serapeum, under Nectanbo I (279-361 BC), but they appear to have performed their duty and led the archaeologist, and, indirectly, the world, right to the door of the buried Serapeum. 

Mariette next proceeded to use explosives to break through the rock of the sealed entrance. Inside, Mariette discovered thousands of statues, bronze tablets and other treasures, including a tomb (the only intact sarcophagus), which it is claimed belonged to Prince Khaemweset, Ramesses (‘the Great’) II’s 4^th son. Khaemweset is so key to the story of the Serapeum that I will discuss him, in depth, in Part 3 of this blog series (&, once it has been posted, you will find the direct link here). 

Altogether, an astonishing 230 crates of antiquities were removed from the Serapeum to the Louvre in Paris, including a magnificent statue of a bull, under a 50:50 deal, which Mariette had secured with the Egyptian authorities.

As for the mysterious boxes, only one box was closed and Mariette noted that the rest were open. True to form, Mariette dynamited the closed box and found nothing inside. Here’s the strange thing, though, the amount of treasure which Mariette retrieved, suggests that the Serapeum had not been robbed and so we can also presume that the boxes had been left open and empty since antiquity.

Egyptologists claim that the contents of the boxes must have been robbed but, if this is true, why were the bulls and valuables, which remained in the Lesser Gallery, not plundered? In addition, how exactly did the robbers move the lids? Since, hundreds of years later, Mariette had to resort to blowing open the only closed one with dynamite!

We know that detailed reports were made by August Mariette of the many treasures and of the boxes and passages but these have mysteriously vanished. 

For many years, the opening was re-sealed and access to the site was carefully controlled by the Egyptian authorities. Even today, whilst tourists are allowed in under close supervision, there are numerous wooden panels, which block some of the tunnels and it appears that some areas have been removed from the site map. Some small tunnels off the alcoves are also filled with stones and have obviously not been excavated or cleared yet. Indeed, the miles of tunnels discovered beneath the Step Pyramid might indicate that there is a whole labyrinth attached to the Serapeum that is not currently being explored.

What Egyptologists Claim…

The official line is that the Serapeum was the burial place of the sacred Apis bulls (see photograph above). If it was, however, for some reason they seem to have missed out a few years and the bulls themselves are mysteriously missing, despite there being no evidence that the Serapeum was robbed at any point before Mariette blew open the entrance.

They tell us that the most ancient burials date to Amenhotep III during the 1350s BC but that ‘The Lesser Vaults’ were created by Prince Khaemweset (1279-1213 BC), with side chambers for the Apis bulls. ‘The Greater Vaults’, where the granite and diorite sarcophagi were placed, is, inconceivably in my view, dated much later to Psamtik I (664-610 BC).

For comparison, they claim that the Great Pyramid of Giza was built under Khufu 2580-2560BC, around 2,000 years earlier than the Serapeum (although, I am not sure that I agree with Egyptologists’ dating of the Great Pyramid either but I’ll get to that, when I discuss the pyramids in an upcoming blog post).

I believe that this dating of the Serapeum’s construction is complete nonsense and I’ll discuss why I believe that in the next blog. Also, in Part 2, I’ll discuss exactly why the construction of the boxes is miraculous.