Another
major monument at Saqqara is the Serapeum:
a gallery of tombs, cut from the rock,
which served as the eternal resting place
of the mummified bodies of the Apis bulls
worshipped in Memphis as embodiments of
the god Ptah. Rediscovered by Auguste
Mariette in 1851, the tombs had been opened
and plundered in antiquity – with
the exception of one that lay undisturbed
for some 3,700 years. The mummified bull
it contained can now be seen in Cairo's
agricultural museum. On the approach to
the Serapeum stands the slightly incongruous
arrangement of statues known the Philosophers'
Circle: a Ptolemaic recognition of the
greatest poets and thinkers of their Greek
ancestors, originally situated in a nearby
temple. Represented here are Hesiod, Homer,
Pindar, Plato, and others.
Another
major monument at Saqqara is the Serapeum:
a gallery of tombs, cut from the rock,
which served as the eternal resting place
of the mummified bodies of the Apis bulls
worshipped in Memphis as embodiments of
the god Ptah. Rediscovered by Auguste
Mariette in 1851, the tombs had been opened
and plundered in antiquity – with
the exception of one that lay undisturbed
for some 3,700 years. The mummified bull
it contained can now be seen in Cairo's
agricultural museum. On the approach to
the Serapeum stands the slightly incongruous
arrangement of statues known the Philosophers'
Circle: a Ptolemaic recognition of the
greatest poets and thinkers of their Greek
ancestors, originally situated in a nearby
temple. Represented here are Hesiod, Homer,
Pindar, Plato, and others.
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