SERA'PEUM (Gr. serapeion or sarapeion), a temple so named in honor of Serapis (q.v.)/ several of which are known to have existed in the ancient world. The most remarkable of these temples was that of Alexandria, which was situated s. of the canal, and outside the walls of the city, and superseded an older temple at Rhacotis. Hither was trans ported the statue of Dis or Pluto from Sinope by Ptolemy I., and attached to it was the celebrated Alexandrian library (q.v.). The serapeum at Memphis attained scarcely less reputation, and consisted of a group of temples dedicated to Astarte, Auubis, Imouthos or iEsculapius, and Serapis. It was approached from the city of Memphis by an avenue of sphinxes, which had already become, partially buried in the sands in the days of Strabo, and were discovered by M. Marlette iu 1850, who, after a series of excavations, uncovered the ruins, and discovered the cemeteries of the mummied apis or bulls sacred to Ptah and Osiris at Memphis. Close to the serapeum was the apeum, or temple of the living apis, in which the bull lived, as well as the cow which had pro duced him. The serapeum, or, as it was called in Egyptian, the abode of Osor-hapi, or the Osiris-Apis, was, in fact, the sepulcher of the bull. The most remarkable part of the work, which was of great extent, was the subterranean tombs of the mummies of the apis, consisting of galleries with numerous chambers, in which the remains of these bulls had been deposited from the reign of Amenophis III. of the 18th dynasty, about 1400 B.C., till the time of the Romans.. Two principal galleries contained the tombs. The second gallery, commenced in the 53d year of Psammetichus I., was on a grander scale than the first, with larger sepulchral chambers and magnificent sareopilagi of granite, measuring sometimes 12 ft. high, 15 ft. long, and weighing many tons. During -the reigu of the Persians, and subsequently, the chambers decreased in size, and the monuments exhibit the general decadence of the arts. The apis, considered as the
incarnation of the *cid Ptah during life, received royal and divine honors after death; his body, or the principal portion, being embalmed,.and a sepulchral tablet or tomb stone placed on his sepulcher, along with other tablets 'of different worshipers, who adored his divinity, and dedicated them to the deceased bull. As the principal tomb Stolle of the hull contained the dates of the king's reign in which he was born or discovered, enthroned in the apeum, and died or was buried in the serapeum, these tablets have become an important element for the chronology of the 19th and subse quent dynasties, and have aided to fix some of the hitherto doubtful points of the chronology of the period. They terminate with Ptolemy Energetes II., 177 a. c. The tablets, votive and sepulchral, amounted to about 1200, and the most remarkable are at present in the museum of the Louvre at Paris. Numerous bronze figures and other antiquities were found during the excavations, comprising costly objects of jewelry, many of which are also iu the Louvre. Besides these, several Greek papyri appear to have formerly belonged to the library or archives of the scrape= were pre. viously known, and many have been published. The[,e throw great light upon the con stitution of the hierarchy of the serapeum, among which was a kind of order of monks, who lived within thi: precincts of the building, beyond which they did not go, and subsisted upon alms or the contributions of their family.—Mariette, Serapeum de phis (4to, Paris, 1856); La Mere d' Apia (4to, Paris, 1856); Aiken. Fran. (41o, Paris, 1855-56); Lepsius, Lieber den Apis-kreis, Zeilsch. d. Marg. Gesell. (8vo, Leip. 1853).