The National Museums of Scotland Saqqara Survey Project 1993-1995

The National Museums of Scotland is engaged in producing an up-to-date archaeological and sub-surface geophysical map of an interesting and little explored area of the necropolis of Memphis at Saqqara. The area concerned comprises the Gisr el-Mudir (also known as the ‘Great Enclosure’) at the southern boundary, the open valley between the Sekhemkhet complex and the Gisr el-Mudir stretching north to the Serapeum and containing the L-shaped enclosure at the Old Kingdom tombs around the mastaba of Ptahhotep, the area of the Serapeum and its dependencies and the valley to the north-west of the Sacred Animal complex down to the edge of the remnant lake at Abusir in the north. Structural details, ceramics, archaeological contexts, human and animal skeletal remains from sondage trenches excavated to confirm geophysical anomalies are described and discussed.