Caches of the Sacred Animal Necropolis at North Saqqara

The caches of the North Saqqara Sacred Animal Necropolis are the last major group of unpublished material from the 1964-1976 EES excavations, which were at first under the direction of W.B. Emery. Our ultimate goal, after further study seasons, is to produce a searchable digital archive for the individual objects in the caches as well as a traditional print book with analyses.

The practice of dedicating metal statuettes grew in the Third Intermediate Period, and increased further in the Late and Ptolemaic Periods. No site better demonstrates this trend than the Sacred Animal Necropolis at North Saqqara. Several thousand statuettes and animal mummies survive from the site, and recent evidence suggests that animal mummies numbered in the millions during its heyday. And yet, we still struggle to explain how and why this surge in dedications and infrastructure came about, not just in Saqqara but across Egypt.

The caches from Saqqara lie at the heart of this discussion – who compiled them, what was their purpose, what processes determined their dedication? But despite their significance, they have not yet undergone thorough and rigorous study. With the information S. Davies and H.S. Smith compiled and collated, combined with the photographic record that Sanda Heinz and I are in the process of re-assembling from the site’s archive at the EES, we can lay solid groundwork for broader discussions about cult development and piety during this time. 

In 2017 we looked at the conceptual framework of defining (foundation) caches in the Late and Ptolemaic Periods, to understand the developments in thinking about bronzes and put the Saqqara material in the context of archaeological discoveries since the 1970s.

We wrote a blogpost on our stay to work in the archives in August 2016:

https://www.ees.ac.uk/News/bronze-gods-investigating-the-sacred-animal-caches-at-saqqara