International Workshop of CULTURAL HERITAGE PROJECT:
Enhancement of the organisation and Capabilities to preserve Cultural Heritage Assets of Egypt
Risk Map for North Saqqara Site
The archaeological site
Saqqara is sited on the further Eastern border of the Libyan desert, just before the area mostly cultivated with date palms; it virtually is the centre of the enormous Memphite necropolis, over 40 km long.
Saqqara’s archaeological area has had an
extraordinarily long life, from the first dynasties (about 3000 BC) until
the destruction of the Coptic monastery of Apa Jeremiah in 960 AD.
Few sites yielded so many
finds as to fill the Egyptian collections of the most important
archaeological museums all over the world as Saqqara did. Its
archaeological stratigraphy,
thus, is very complex, and there are places with structures of different
periods, with over 2000 years of interval, and whose complexity only
experienced archaeologists can fully appreciate.
The over 600,000 yearly visitors of Saqqara
usually visit Djoser’s complex, then move to Teti’s pyramid and finally
visit the mastabas of Mereruka and Kagemni. Some of them visit
Ptahhotep’s and Ty’s mastabas, while a minority visit the area of
Unas pyramid and causeway as well. Transfers are mostly made by coaches,
while only for short stretches on foot, thus almost completely missing the
landscape’s charm and, moreover, parking the vehicles on buried
archaeological structures.
All the anthropic weight is concentrated on
very few structures, also because there are no valid alternatives to
visiting the 9 monuments currently open to public.
