Serapeum

This name is incorrectly given to the Apis mausoleum at Sakkara. The Serapeum proper was the temple built over the site of the excavated tombs, of which the very few remains are covered with sand. The ruins were discovered by Mariette in 1860. The word is a combination of the two Egyptian words—Osiris-Apis, a combination of which the Greeks made their god Serapis (q.v.). The huge vaults opened by Mariette consist of three parts, one which originally contained the bulls of the period from Amen-hetep III. to the XXth Dynasty, another those of XXIInd to XXVth Dynasties, and the third part those from the reign of Psammetichus I. (XXVIth Dynasty) to the time of the later Ptolemies. Thus the burials cover a period of about 1450 years, i.e. from about 1500 B.C. to 50 B.C. Only the third part is open to the public, the two first being covered with sand. This part consists of one long gallery excavated in the rock, and some shorter ones. On either side of the long gallery are deep pits in which are the enormous sarcophagi. These are monoliths of red or black granite, or limestone, the average measurements being—length, 13 ft., width, 8 ft., height, 11 ft. Mariette found the covers of most of the sarcophagi pushed aside and the contents gone. Of the twenty-four that are there, only three bore any inscription. The Serapeum or Serape i on at Alexandria was a temple of Serapis founded by Ptolemy Soter, which was said to be only surpa ed in splendour by the Capitol at Rome. It was destroyed by order of Theodosius in A.D. 389.