The Serapeum of Saqqara (Part 3 of 5: Prince Khaemweset)

In the last part of this series of five, I discussed the astonishing construction of the boxes that were discovered in the Serapeum of Saqqara. This week, I’m going to consider a key historical figure with a direct connection to the Serapeum, Prince Khaemweset.

Before I get to him, however, I’d like to write a little bit about what Egyptologists’ claim was in the boxes.

The Serapeum of Saqqara 

Part 3 of 5: Prince Khaemweset

What was in the boxes? The official line…

In this day and age, I know that it is easy to scoff and to doubt that such trouble would have been taken over tombs for bulls but let’s not get carried away here. Bulls were the source of one of the first cults and of divine importance. If you think that you are completely detached from a bull cult, you might ask yourself what you celebrate on 25^thDecember because that date has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus but everything to do with a festival of the sun and the bull cult of Mithras, a serious bovine religious rival of early Christianity.

For the Ancient Egyptians, bulls represented strength, determination and virility and, crucially, they were inextricably linked with their god-like rulers, the pharaohs. So, I promise you that I do not dismiss their importance easily. I am not ignorant – I understand their cultural significance.

Indeed, when an Apis bull died, a self-imposed celibacy was imposed by the people until the joyous day when the priests declared that a new Apis had been found (which would be known by certain repeated markings, such as a white blaze on the forehead). One can imagine that celibacy until that point would have highly motivated the people to find a new one!

Here’s the thing, though, I’ve seen quite a few Egyptian tombs of some of the greatest pharaohs of Egypt and no pharaoh’s sarcophagus comes anywhere close to being as large, as heavy, or as meticulously carved, or polished, as these boxes. If they were for bulls, not a single bull was found inside one, even in the only one Mariette found sealed, when he rediscovered the tomb, which he dynamited open. 

The extension to The Greater Vaults (which was possibly constructed 664 – 610 BC) did contain bulls but they were housed in small caves and in wooden sarcophagi, of a similar size to bulls. Why, then, were these beautiful granite boxes built so vast if they were just to house a bull, since the wooden ones found on site were bull-sized? Why were they so elaborately constructed, if simple wooden sarcophagi were good enough for some of the other divine bulls?

The answer is simple. They were not built for the Apis bulls. In Part 4 I’ll consider the various theories about what was inside them but, for now, I think it’s important to tell you a little bit about the person who Egyptologists claim built the Serapeum, Prince Khaemweset.

Prince Khaemweset

Evidently the Serapeum was of great importance to Prince Khaemweset, as the archaeologist, Mariette, found the Prince’s seal everywhere inside but this is not evidence that he constructed them. Indeed, Khaemweset’s father, Ramesses, was notorious for carving his seal, or adding his own story to ancient monuments, effectively stamping his own importance upon his ancestors’ deeds. 

You do not have to go to Egypt to verify this, you can do it by going to have a look at the so-called ‘Cleopatra’s Needle’ on the Thames Embankment in London. You will discover, on the brass plaque beneath it, that Ramesses added his own inscriptions, some 200 years after those of Thutmose III, who had ordered the obelisk’s construction. There is no reason to believe Khaemweset did not do the same with the Serapeum, particularly as he evidently felt such a connection to the place, so much so that there is even some suggestion that he might have lived down there.

Khaemweset is often described as ‘the first Egyptologist’, for his fascination with history and his attempts to rediscover and restore historic buildings, tombs and temples. There is thus no reason to think that the Serapeum was not a similar project – that is, a rediscovery from the ancient past, as opposed to a new construction.

Khaemweset is an intriguing character, who was obsessed with secrets, magic and history. He had ridden into battle with his father at the tender age of 4 and is depicted in various subsequent conflicts in carvings upon temple walls. He went on to be High Priest of Ptah at Memphis, administrator of the Memphite sanctuaries and, eventually, Governor of Memphis. Legend has it that he even possessed the Emerald Tablet of Thoth – the cornerstone of alchemy and an item associated with the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone. The tablet’s text contained the famous line – ‘Thus the world was created’.

Khaemweset’s father is said to have lived to the extraordinary age of 90, which reports suggest, was a result of his being regularly rejuvenated by Prince Khaemweset. After he had ruled for thirty years, the Pharaoh was required to regularly prove himself as fit to rule by running at the Sed Festival every three years. So, if Ramesses was still able to run in his late eighties, what magic might Khaemweset have employed? Perhaps the Serapeum itself was a place of miraculous healing, which might account for why a courtyard for the Heb-Sed running track can be found just outside the Serapeum?

The repetition of his seal, gives credence to the idea that Khaemweset was buried in the Serapeum and Mariette recorded as much. However, as with so much of the evidence, the mummy vanished and archaeologists later claimed, rather bizarrely, that it had just been a bull, in the shape of the Prince. Of course, the disappearance of the sarcophagus only compounds the mystery.

In summary, then, I believe that Khaemweset uncovered the secrets of the Serapeum, rather than creating it.  His obsession with the Serapeum must have reflected his personal interest in magic and healing but the removal of his body and his tomb and the disappearance of Mariette’s notes have deprived us of his legacy and added to the mysteries of a place he held sacred above all others.

In Part 4, I will consider the various theories regarding the real contents of the boxes.