Sacerdotes artesanos: las tumbas de los sumos sacerdotes menfitas del Reino Antiguo en Saqqara Norte (Misión Arqueológica Hispano-Egipcia en Saqqara), cuarta campaña

The Spanish-Egyptian Archaeological Mission in Saqqara began its work in 2019, with the survey and excavation
of the Kom el-Khamsaeen site in south-west Saqqara. The best documented official in the necropolis is Imephor
Impy Nikauptah, who held the office of high priest of the gods Ptah and Sokar of Memphis at the very end of the
Old Kingdom and/or during the First Intermediate Period, when Memphis was still the capital of the country.
Despite the severe looting suffered by the site, his tomb and part of his grave goods have been documented and
partially reconstructed. The site was surveyed and excavated in its entirety between 2019 and 2022. The Mission
then turned its attention to Imephor's predecessors in the office of high priest of Memphis, that is, to the officials
who held the office throughout the Old Kingdom. All the Memphite high priests of that period whose tomb is
known to us are buried in northern Saqqara, to the north of the Step Pyramid of king Netjerikhet-Djeser, in a
small sector of the area known as the ‘Mariette cemetery’, because it was excavated in the mid-19th century by
this pioneer of Egyptology and since then almost no one else has worked there again. Currently, the Mission of
the Czech Institute of Egyptology and our Mission are working there together. The objective is to re-excavate the
tombs of the Memphite high priests of the Old Kingdom and their relatives, and to excavate possible previously
unknown tombs located in the same area, not found by Mariette. In 2023 and 2024 we carried out the first two
campaigns in the area, which consisted of a complete geophysical survey that revealed that, together with the
already known mastabas, there are new and never mapped structures, and the start of excavations, which have uncovered three new mastabas whose owners are still unknown.