A tour in the bulls’ tombs

by Steven Viney

Saqqara is renowned for being one of Greater Cairo’s most alluring locations for archaeologists and tourists alike. One of the main reasons many prefer this archaeological site to the Giza Pyramids north of it is that it’s home to antiquities that date from the earlier kings of ancient Egypt all the way to the Greco-Roman period — a time span of almost 3,500 years.

Amid the slump in the site’s visitors since last year’s uprising, the Antiquities Ministry officially inaugurated the Serapeum in Saqqara at the end of September, hoping to send out a message to tourists that Egypt is safe again, with new sites to see.

The Serapeum, originally known as the Apis bull tombs, was where ancient civilizations would mummify and bury bulls in vaulted tombs and sarcophagi with jewels, to worship gods such as Osiris, Apis, Ptah and, later, the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, who was a combination of Osiris and Apis. The evolution of the types of gods and worship practices highlighted in the Serapeum’s inscriptions is testament to how much history is contained in the Saqqara antiquities site — and particularly the Serapeum.

This burial site is not newly discovered — it has actually been under restoration for almost three decades. Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Ali says the Serapeum is the first of many new restoration projects around Egypt intended to entice new tourists.

The Apis tombs at Saqqara Necropolis back on Egypt's tourist map

The salvage operation of the Apis tombs known as the Serapeum is finally completed

by Nevine El-Aref , Thursday 20 Sep 2012

Dozens of journalists, photographers and top officials as well as archaeologists and restorers gathered today at the Saqqara necropolis, almost 25 kilometres far of Giza plateau, to witness the official inauguration of the Serapeum. After almost three decades of debate among engineers, archaeologists and restorers, the well-known Apis tombs at Saqqara necropolis known as the Serapeam have finally been restored. The tombs of Ptahhotep and Mereruka, two Old Kingdom noblemen, were also inaugurated after restoration.

The Serapeum is one of the main tourist attractions in Saqqara, discovered by archaeologist August Mariette in three stages in 1851-1854, during his business trip to Egypt to document and list Coptic manuscripts in monasteries. While waiting for permission from the Patriarch of the Coptic Church, Minister of State for Antiquities (MSA) Mohamed Ibrahim recounted to reporters, Mariette went on an exploratory trip to discover Egypt’s monuments and archaeological sites. During his trip, he found several engravings bearing the name of Osiris Apis and, asked about that name, archaeologists told him that it was the god of Saqqara. Mariette then went to Saqqara, where he discovered the Apis bull tombs and called them the Serapeum, a name used by French historian Strabon referring to Serapis. From 1851 and 1854 Mariette managed to discover the two parts of the Serapeum: the vaults including the tombs of Apis bulls from the 18^th to the 26^th dynasties (still under restoration); and the great Serapeum which has now been restored, consisting of a long corridor lined with 24 Apis bull vaulted tombs with granite sarcophagi.

Three monuments set to re-open in Egypt's Saqqara Necropolis

Following more than six years of restoration work, the tombs of two noblemen – along with Saqqara's famous Apis cemetery – will soon be open to the general public

by Nevine El-Aref , Sunday 16 Sep 2012

Final restoration work is now in full swing at Egypt's famous Saqqara Necropolis, home of King Djoser's iconic Step Pyramid and a collection of Old Kingdom mastabas and tombs.

Soon, tombs of Sixth Dynasty Chief of Justice Mereuka and Fifth Dynasty Vizier Ptahhotep, along with the Apis tombs of the Serapeum, will be open to the public.

After more than six years of restoration, during which underground water was pumped out of the three tombs, cracked walls and ceilings have been repaired. Wall paintings and engravings have also been cleaned and restored.

A visitors' centre that relates the history of the Saqqara Necropolis and the monuments it houses through documentaries and photos is now in the final stages of construction. A new road has also been prepared to facilitate tourists visiting the necropolis' precincts.

"Opening these tombs at the Saqqara Necropolis represents a great success, as it will attract more tourists to one of Egypt's most important ancient sites," Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim told Ahram online.

Ibrahim explained that, since 1986, the Serapeam – long considered one of Saqqara's main tourist attractions – has been closed to the public. For almost 30 years, tourists have not been able to wander through its splendid rock-hewn galleries, flanked by tomb chambers containing the enormous sarcophagi that once held the remains of the sacred Apis bulls.

In Egypt, archaeologists re-open tombs to woo tourists

By Simon Denyer

GIZA, Egypt — More than 4,500 years since the paint was first applied, the reds, yellows and blues still stand out on the walls of the tomb of Queen Meresankh III.

A hunter throws a net to catch water birds, craftsmen make papyrus mats while a stream of people carry baskets filled with offerings for the afterlife.

Decorating the walls all around are paintings, reliefs and statues of Meresankh herself, draped in a leopard-skin cloak, standing beside her mother in a boat pulling papyrus stems through the water, or being entertained by musicians and singers.

Egypt’s tourism industry has been battered since last year’s revolution, but here, beside the pyramids of Giza, officials are trying to attract the visitors back.

The tomb of Meresankh, whose names means lover of life, will be opened to the public for the first time in nearly 25 years later this year, while five other tombs of high priests — buried under the desert sands for decades — will be thrown open.

“We want to give people a reason to come back, to give them something new,” said Ali Asfar, director general of archaeology on the Giza plateau.

Meresankh was a woman whose life was intimately bound up in the pharaoh’s incestuous rule. Her tomb lies a stone’s throw east of the Great Pyramid of her grandfather Khufu, better known as Cheops.

Alexandria and Egypt

Alexandria, the brilliant Greek city state known as "The Bride of the Mediterranean", wore its distinctly Egyptian flavour with pride, and it was more pharaonic than previously supposed. Salvaged sphinxes, statues, papyrus columns and blocks of stone inscribed with the names of pharaohs attest to this. The sea bed in the Great (Eastern) harbour is carpeted with such works -- some usurped from earlier structures and transported to adorn the Ptolemaic city.

Ptolemy I, the general who inherited Egypt, took immediate steps to accommodate the local population. On the spacious summit of a high rock in Alexandria (where the so-called Pompey's Pillar stands today) he constructed the Serapeum, a temple to house the god Osir-Apis (Serapis in Greek), a hybrid god is attributed to two sources: an Egyptian familiar with local tradition, and a priestly family acquainted with Greek rituals.

Rhakotis (Re-kadit), the site chosen by Alexander for his new capital, was neither a sparsely populated settlement of nomads and their cattle as often described, nor "the wretched fishing village" described by Idris Bell in his Egypt from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest. Its strategic suitability as a harbour was recognised as far back as Egypt's 18th Dynasty (c. 1567 BC) when an Egyptian community was settled there. It grew over a period of two centuries, and by the reign of Ramesses II had a large enough population for him to build a temple in honour of Osiris.

During the Saite Period in the sixth century BC, an Egyptian garrison was stationed at Rhakotis. The local population further expanded and the temple was enlarged. By the reign of Nektanebo II, the last Egyptian pharaoh before the Greek conquest, it was so important a community that plans were made (which did not materialise) to develop a royal necropolis for pharaonic burials.

When Dinocrates, an experienced Greek city planner from Rhodes, designed Alexandria on the rectangular blueprint of Hellenic cities, Rhakotis was automatically absorbed within the city limits. Today's districts of Mina Al-Bassal, Kom Al-Shufaga and Kermous are built on its ruins.

Underwater archaeology is a relatively new field of specialisation and one that is reaping remarkable rewards. Using modern equipment to map objects on the sea bed, a joint European-Egyptian mission under the directorship of Jean-Yves Empereur (renowned scholar and director of research at the National Centre for Scientific Research, and of the Centre for Alexandrine Studies), was launched in 1997 to save the submerged remains of the port and palace area of Alexandria. Among the mass of stone objects that litter the sea bed is a part of a monolith, believed to be of Ptolemy I, that might be one of a pair of statues that stood at the entrance to the harbour -- which confirms that the city was more integrated with pharaonic tradition than previously supposed.

Source: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1087/he2.htm