Spanish-Egyptian Archaeological Mission in Saqqara 2024

Archaeological Projects

Spanish-Egyptian Archaeological Mission in Saqqara 2024, Archaeological Projects

Since 2023, the Spanish-Egyptian Archaeological Mission in Saqqara (SEAMS), a project from the Institut d’Estudis del Pròxim Orient Antic (IEPOA) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), has been working on a new concession in North Saqqara, in the so called Mariette cemetery, located 700m northwest of the impressive Step Pyramid of the third dynasty king Netjerkhet (aka Djoser).

Auguste Mariette, one of the pioneers of Egyptology, in the second half of the 19th century started excavating in the area and found several mastabas of high officials that, a century later, are practically all of them covered by the sand of the desert.

The goal of the SEAMS project is to re-find the monumental mastaba of one of the high priests of the gods Ptah and Sokar of Memphis: Sabu Tjety, who lived in the 6th Dynasty, and the one of the high priest Ranefer. All the Memphite high priests of the Old Kingdom were buried in the same cemetery, . The cemetery had been excavated by Auguste Mariette, one of the pioneers of Egyptology, in the second half of the 19th century, and no one has worked there since.