Cairo - Saqqara

Saqqara is on the desert plateau above Memphis and contains a complex of Pyramids and Mastabas, including the famous Step Pyramid of Zoser. The sands wash your feet nearly everywhere in Saqqara, which has a much more desert feel than Giza. Named for Soqqar, the Memphite god of the dead, this was a necropolis for over 3000 years, though most of its greatest monuments belong to the Old Kingdom.

Mastaba of Akhti-Hotep and Ptah-Hotep: Belonging to the priest Ptah-Hotep and his father, the vizier Akhti-Hotep, this Fifth Dynasty double mastabe is outstanding for the variety and quality of its colored reliefs.

Mastaba of Mereruka: Mereruka was vizir to a Sixth-Dynasty pharaoh and his 32-room mastabe is the largest at Saqqara.

Mastaba of Ti: The reliefs in Ti's beautifully decorated funerary chamber rival those of Ptah-Hotep's, and exceed them in variety. the highlight here is a relief of Ti sailing through the marshes.

Pyramid of Unas: Unas was the last pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty and the 350 years from the Step Pyramid through the Great Pyramids at Giza to this heap of rubble mark the rise and fall of the Old Kingdom sun cult. The tomb chamber is entirely covered with inscriptions celebrating eternal life and the newly-popular resurrection cult of Oris.

The Serapeum: The Serapeum, where the Apis bulls were buried, is the strangest place at Saqqara. Long, gloomily-lit, rock-cut galleries beneath the desert are lined with gigantic vaults, each vault containing a bull sized black sarcophagus.

Step Pyramid of Zoser: The Step Pyramid is the central piece of an extensive funerary complex built for the Third Dynasty pharaoh Zoser, who lived around 2700 BC. Surrounded by an enclosure wall probably built in imitation of the city walls of Memphis, the first pyramid, 62m high, was created by placing a series of ever smaller mastabas one on top of the other.



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