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The Ibis Galleries
Saqqara, Saqara, Al - Badrashin, Giza, EgyptAbout
The Ibis Galleries The sacred ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus) was the most common species of the bird regarded in ancient Egypt as an incarnation of the god Thoth. By the Late Period and Ptolemaic times, ibises were mummified in great numbers and buried in catacombs, especially at Tuna el-Gebel and Saqqara. Perhaps Saqqara was chosen as the site of an ibis cemetery because of its associations with Imhotep (Djoser's architect) who was identified with Thoth (or Asclepius) from the Late Period onwards. Many votive objects have been found in the galleries, such as amulets and statuettes, produced in the shape of the ibis which were sacred to the cult of Thoth. The mummified ibises were probably bought by pilgrims and donated as gifts to Thoth or offered by those in search of healing from the deified Imhotep. During the 18th and 19th centuries, travellers reported seeing the 'tombs of the bird mummies' at Saqqara but these were virtually ignored until Walter Bryan Emery began to excavate in the area while hoping to find the tomb of Imhotep in 1964. Emery worked in an area which was strewn with pottery sherds from a late pharaonic date and went on to discover their source while clearing the shaft of a Dynasty III mastaba tomb. His workmen accidentally broke into catacombs similar in appearance to the Serapeum, but this time brimming with mummified ibises (estimated at over one and a half million). It seems that the birds had been placed in the galleries in sealed pottery jars - the source of the mysterious potsherds. Emery went on to find an extensive complex of ibis galleries running to many chambers containing rows and rows of mummified birds stacked in their pottery jars. Over the next decade Emery also found catacombs containing burials of falcons, baboons and the galleries of the 'Mother of the Apis'. Emery's excavation came to an end with his death in 1971, but has since been continued by others.
