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Saqqara stretches 7 km along the desert plateau above the ancient capital Memphis, 25 km south of Cairo. It served as the royal necropolis for more than 3,000 years, from the First Dynasty (c. 3100 BCE) to the Christian era. The defining monument is the Step Pyramid of Djoser, the first large-scale cut-stone structure in human history. Designed by the royal architect Imhotep — later deified by the Egyptians and equated with the Greek healing god Asclepius — the pyramid began as a mastaba (flat-topped tomb) and was progressively enlarged into a six-tiered stepped structure reaching 62 m in height. The surrounding funerary complex covers 15 hectares and includes dummy buildings in stone that imitate the reed and wood structures of the palace. Saqqara also contains the Serapeum, a subterranean gallery of enormous granite sarcophagi where the sacred Apis bulls were buried; pyramid complexes of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasty pharaohs, including the first inscribed Pyramid Texts (c. 2400 BCE, the oldest religious corpus in the world); and a cemetery of officials, priests, and craftsmen whose brightly painted mastabas provide extraordinary detail about daily life in the Old Kingdom.
