Saqqara and Memphis

UNESCO World Heritage Site: Memphis And Its Necropolis (1979). The Step Pyramid Of Djoser Is The Oldest Monumental Stone Building On Earth, And The Surrounding Necropolis Holds The Pyramid Texts At Unas, The Apis Bull Catacombs Of The Serapeum And The Painted Mastabas Of Ti And Mereruka · Saqqara, Giza

Memphis was the capital of Egypt for most of the Old Kingdom, and Saqqara is the cemetery it buried its dead in for three thousand years. The Step Pyramid of Djoser stands in the middle of it: six stacked terraces of limestone built around 2650 BC by the architect Imhotep, the oldest monumental stone building anywhere on earth and the experiment that made Giza possible a century later. Around it the plateau is dense with things most visitors never reach - the Pyramid of Unas with the earliest Pyramid Texts carved inside it, the Serapeum where the sacred Apis bulls were buried in granite sarcophagi down a rock-cut gallery, and the mastaba tombs of Ti and Mereruka with their painted scenes of farming, fishing and butchery. Down in the palm groves at Mit Rahina an open-air museum holds what is left of Memphis itself, including a colossus of Ramses II lying on its back. Half an hour from Cairo, and a fraction of Giza's crowd.

Desert escarpment above the Nile valley about 30 km south of Cairo, with the Memphis open-air museum at Mit Rahina below it, Saqqara, Giza, Egypt

Open daily from early morning to late afternoon, shorter in winter. Which tombs and interiors are open changes: the Step Pyramid's inner chambers, the Serapeum and the painted mastabas have each been closed for restoration and reopened over the past decade, so ask at the ticket office what is accessible on the day rather than planning a route in advance. Several of the best monuments carry separate tickets. The Imhotep Museum by the entrance is included and worth twenty minutes before you go up. The Memphis open-air museum at Mit Rahina keeps its own casual hours a few kilometres down the hill. There is no public transport worth using: this is a taxi or a hired car from Cairo, usually combined with Dahshur, which is fifteen minutes further south.

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