Saqqara is also home to the Serapeum, a giant complex of tunnels that once housed a collection of bull mummies enclosed in 24 enormous granite sarcophagi. Historians believe these bulls were worshipped in homage to an Egyptian deity called Apis, symbolising strength, fertility, and the living manifestation of the god Ptah.Once each bull died, they were mummified and worshipped in the Serapeum—a site that was active for over 1,000 years.
As we venture deeper into this once-sacred space, you can feel the energy in the air and the centuries of history it housed. However, many questions, particularly around how these tunnels were built, remain unanswered.
The echoing tunnels are vast, precisely carved, and clearly a phenomenal accomplishment for ancient engineers. “If the pyramids of Giza are one of the seven wonders above the ground, then the Serapeum at Saqqara is one of the wonders under the ground,” Gabr says. “You cannot imagine or explain how they managed to carve these kinds of tunnels under the ground.”
Modern experts also can’t agree on how the tunnels were created, nor how each 70-tonne sarcophagus (each made of a single piece of granite) was brought underground. Modern efforts to remove the sarcophagi have proved amusingly fruitless—with one sarcophagus now left stuck close to the entrance, eternally blocked by a corner.
