Welcome to Saqqara.nl
A visitor to the site before 1975 would have viewed a landscape uncluttered by monuments of any kind ... An observant visitor might have noticed rough rectangular depressions in the sand: the outlines of buried tomb courtyards. - Geoffrey Martin
Welcome to Saqqara.nl. This website is maintained by the Friends of Saqqara Foundation, a non-profit foundation aiming at providing financial support for Dutch archaeological research at Saqqara, Egypt. In particular the foundation supports the joint excavation team of the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden and Leiden University. This team is advancing the research, documentation, and preservation of the monuments in the area south of the Step Pyramid of Djoser, where a cemetery of important New Kingdom officials is located.
If you wish to support the Dutch expedition's excavations and restorations at Saqqara, make an online donation to the Friends of Saqqara Foundation now!
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Check out our Friends of Saqqara Facebook page with announcements, news and photographs! |
Site open for tourists!
Since May 23, 2011 tourists are allowed to visit our site. The tombs of Maya, Horemheb, Tia, Meryneith, Ptahemwia and Pay & Raia are officially open to the
public. In order to visit the tombs one should request an extra ticket on arrival at the plateau. The guard at the site has keys to open these six tombs as well as the subterranean burial chambers of Maya.
The Leiden Excavations in the New Kingdom necropolis at Saqqara (Egypt) are a joint project of:
RMO - Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) at Leiden, the Netherlands
UL - Leiden University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Egyptology
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In close cooperation with:
MSA - the Ministry of State for Antiquities of Egypt.
The excavations are funded by:
RMO - Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) at Leiden, the Netherlands
NWO - The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
FoS - Friends of Saqqara
NAF - The Netherland-America Foundation
Huub Pragt EGYPTOLOOG
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The objectives of this project are:
- to relocate the 'lost tombs' of New Kingdom officials last seen at Saqqara in the 19th century
- to restore these monuments to their former splendour
- to publish their wall reliefs and paintings, sculptures, and other finds
- to identify those fragments from these tombs which are now in museums all over the world
- to study the organisation, structure, and layout of the cemetery as a whole
- to shed new light on the careers of the tomb owners, on funerary ritual, art and architecture
This site tells you about our motivations, our expectations, and above all ... about our achievements!