Saqqara Online
Saqqara Online is an excellent website for keeping up to date with the the excavations in the New Kingdom necropolis at Saqqara.
The Leiden Excavations are a joint project of the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden, the Netherlands & the Leiden University, Faculty of Arts, Department of Egyptology and Faculty of Archaeology in close cooperation with the Supreme Council for Antiquities of Egypt.
The objectives of the project are:
- to relocate the ‘lost tombs’ of New Kingdom officials last seen at Saqqara in the 19th century
- to restore these monuments to their former splendour
- to publish their wall reliefs and paintings, sculptures, and other finds
- to identify those fragments from these tombs which are now in museums all over the world
- to study the organisation, structure, and layout of the cemetery as a whole
- to shed new light on the careers of the tomb owners, on funerary ritual, art and architecture
A summary of the history of excavations in the area is given starting as early as the second half of the 16th century and includes such names as Napolean, Lepsius, Marriette, Maspero, Quibell, Firth, and more. There is even a page of personal profiles of many of these people.
The discovery of the tomb of Maya is described. From the site:
“In 1843, Richard Lepsius recorded the remains of a tomb of a Treasurer called Maya and marked its position on his map of Saqqara. It was not until 1958 that this find was connected with the three statues in Leiden, opening up the possibility of further exploration in the field. The RMO had been digging in Egypt since the fifties (excavations by Adolf Klasens at Abu Roash, 1957-9), and had also taken part in the Nubian Salvage campaign (Shokan and Abdallah Nirqi, 1962-1964). It was now looking for a new project and conceived the plan to start a search for the tomb of Maya, which had long disappeared under drift sand again. It stood to reason to join forces with Geoffrey Martin of the Egypt Exploration Society, whose work in the Saqqara animal necropolis was just drawing to an end. In 1975, the Anglo-Dutch expedition started work at Saqqara in the area indicated by Lepsius’ map: south of the Unas causeway and west of the Monastery of Apa Jeremias. The main aim of the expedition was to compile additional information on the statues of Maya and Meryt and other New Kingdom treasures of the Leiden museum.”
The focus of the site, however, is on recent excavations in the area. A detailed map of the tombs allows the visitor to click on a tomb to learn more about each one.
You can keep up to date with the current clearing of the tomb of Ptahemwia on the ‘Digging Diary 2008′ page:
“This season the work will continue in clearing the forecourt of Ptahemwia’s tomb, the areas to the north and south. The shafts and underground complexes will be excavated, and the walls of the tomb will be consolidated. Further, the tombs of Horemheb, Pay and Raia will be restored. In Maya’s tomb one of the subsidiary shafts will be re-investigated in order to ascertain whether it is indeed leading to an archaic tomb, suggested by some artefactual evidence.
The team arrived in Egypt on the 20th of January and will leave on March 5th.”
The Saqqara Online website is definitely a site to add to your favourites.
Image source: Saqqara Online
