The remains of this edifice were discovered in the plains of Sakkara, in 1850 by M. Marietta, then an employe of the Louvre, who had been sent to Egypt to collect Coptic manuscripts for the French government, where he first found the dromos of sphinxes connecting the temples. This excavation was a work of great labour, the dromos having been made through the ancient cemetery of Sakkara, and curved to avoid injuring the tombs, and partly buried under a great depth of sand; after excavating a length of 7000 feet and uncovering 141 sphinxes, he discovered at the end of the avenue a semicircle ornamented with statues of the sages, poets, and philosophers of ancient Greece, supposed to have formed part of the library of the Serapeum. Between this semicircle and the two last sphinxes he found a transverse avenue, the right branch of which led to a temple erected to Apis by the monarch Nectanebea, or Neththerhebi; the left branch, paved with large stones, led to tho Serapeum itself. The dromos was about 860 feet in length, flanked on each side by a low wall, divided on the left side about the middle by a small Greek building having before it a nos in which was a statue of Apia, probably that described by Strabo. On each elite of the temple and on the wall, were allegorical figures of boys riding on chimeras and animals, and at tho end of the dromos were the pylons or gateways of the Serapeum.
The wall, built in the reign of Neththerhebi, was covered with sepulchral altars, and 428 small bronze votive figures of deities were discovered in a niche. At this stage, owing to difficulties with the Egyptian government, the excavations were stopped in 1851, and not resumed till the spring of 1852. In November of 1851, the first tombs of the Apia were discovered, 640 sepulchral tablets, five entrances, and various small objects. This great subterraneous cemetery divided itself into two parts, the first of which had its entrance at the south end, and went in a northern direction forming a vaulted gallery like a tunnel, having at its side about 20 chambers, the oldest of the age of Rarneses II., and the most recent of that of Psammetichus I. During this period the remains of 24 Apis mummies showed that this number of generations of cattle had lived and died during that chronological period. The other part of the cemetery was a souterrain divided into a considerable number of galleries, com menced in the 52nd year of Psammetiehus I., and continued till the commencement of the Roman Empire. The bull mummies of this division were deposited in gigantic monolith sarcophagi of Syenitic granite, transported from the quarries above the first cataract. These sarcophagi ranged from 11 to 12 feet high, 14 to 15 feet long, and weighed 6500 kilogrammes ; or above 64 tons, 24 of them were found in the 40 chambers of this tunnel. The tablets were not fixed to the inner walls but to the lintels of the doors, and were chiefly inscribed in demotic characters, and the most important one was placed in the midst of the wall which closed the door of the chamber, containing the dates of the birth, enthronement, death, and burial of the Apia. Only four of these sarcophagi had inscriptions, one bore the date of the 2nd year of Khabaish, a Persian king, supposed to be later than Darius; another that of the reign of Cambyses ; a third in that of Amasis II.; and the last that of Ptolemy. The result of these researches showed that the bull, said to have been stabbed by Cambyses, sur vived till the reign of Darius. Among the mummies of the Apis were found two others of men, evidently of the highest rank, who had been buried with the sacred bulls. The bulls which died from the com mencement of the reign of Amenophia III. to the middle of that of Ramses II., had a mortuary chapel with four columns erected above
the tomb, which was a chamber with a fiat roof hollowed in the solid rock below, and the votive tablets of the adorers of the deceased bull were built into the stylobate of the mortuary chapel. The bull was treated as a deceased human being, and the sarcophagi were accom panied by sepulchral vases, and the visitors to the tomb deposited the usual sepulchral figures offered to the dead ; but at the later period of the age of Rameses the tombs consisted of chambers on each side of the gallery, with the votive tablets placed in the gallery; and the sepulchral figures, deposited in the cases, were strewn along the floor, or inserted into niches in tho wall. After the 53rd year of Psam metichus II., the chambers became more magnificent, being above 80 feet high, with vaulted roofs of white limestone, and the walls faced with stone from the Tourah quarries; the sarcophagi were of the finest red Sycnite. At the period of the 30th dynasty the tablets were not allowed to be placed inside the tomb, but were restricted to the entrance, and the walls of the roads conducting to the tomb. After the epoch of Darius, the tombs are far less magnificent. The Apia of Cambyaes is deposited in the vestibule of that which died in the 4th year of Darius. All the sacred bulls were not buried with the same honours, those most carefully etnbalmed their principal bones placed in a wooden coffin inside the ; others were cast into a hollowed place in the rocky pavement, and covered with a mere The tablets found consisted chiefly of hiero inscriptions intermixed with demotic, with the 15th year of Darius, and consisted of two classes : the sepulchral, or tombstones of the bull, on which was inscribed the data of the death of the sacred bull, that of his birth, and of his installation at Memphis, and the which ho had reached ; and votive tablets dedicated by individuals to the departed Apia for the usual benefits supposed to be accorded by the About 1200 of these tablets were found, and they have thrown upon the period and suc cession of the monarchs of the 21st and 22nd dynasty. 7000 objects were found, 3000 of which referred to the worship of Apia, a number by no means remarkable when it is considered that Ptolemy L spent about I0,000L on the funeral of an Apia The sepulchres were of bulls which died in the nophis III., .Amenankhut, horns, and Khuenaten, of the 18th dynasty ; of Sethos I. and Rameses IL, three of which happened in the 16th, `26th, and 30th years of the Last-named monarch, of the 19th dynasty ; of Rammer III., V., VIII., XI V., of the 20th of Osorchon H., Takelothis L, Sheshonk III., IV., of the 22nd dynasty; of Bocchoris, of the 21th dynasty ; of Sabaco and Tirhaka, of the 25th of Psammetichua I., II., and Aahmes, of the 26th dynasty; of Cambyses, Darius, and Khabash or Smerills, of the 27th of Netlither hebi, of the 30th dynasty. The tablets to this chiefly demotic, consist of votive inscriptions in honour of Apis, and they the dates for the appearance of the Apis: n.c. 253, in the 32nd year of Ptolemy n.c. 231, the 20th year of n.c. 210, the 14th year of Ptolemy Philopator ; n.c. 185 and 165, in the of Ptolemy Philometor ; B.C. 142, the I3th year of Ptolemy and me. 117, in the of Ptolemy 11. The temple of ..Escidapiva was also partially uncovered by 31. Marlette, but tradition had the spot to be the prison of Joseph, and the work could not be carried on.
(31ariette, Choir de Monuments decourerta pendant le deplete meat du Serapetan de Memphis, 4to, Paris, 1856 ; Mss sire stir la nitre d'Apis, 4to, Paris, L'Athencuin Francais, 1855, 1856.)