Saqqara has been subject to systematic archaeological research for more than 150 years. But the excavations conducted by prominent archaeologists-egyptologists representing various countries always concentrated on the area adjoining the "step pyramid" at its eastern, northern or southern side. Led by the conviction that "each coin must have its reverse", all explorers neglected the area extending westwards from the pyramid enclosure. Nobody expected to find here much more than stone quarries or a "refuse heap" of the ancient necropolis, until a Polish archaeological mission, issued from the Research Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology of the Warsaw University, started systematic excavations at this place in 1987. The project has been directed by the author of the present article. 

Already the first trial-pits executed by our mission at three various places had proved that this area, nowadays covered with sand blown in during later centuries, was an important part of royal necropolis from the very beginning of pharaonic Egypt until the beginnings of christianity, i.e. for nearly four millenia. The greatest discovery gratified our efforts in 1997, when a magnificent tomb was unearthed below a huge stratum of sand, some 120 mrs westwards from the pyramid. It proved to be the burial place of an important, though so far unknown nobleman who lived in the beginnings of 6th dynasty, i.e. ca 2300 B.C. 

But important discoveries always require a "ransom". This was first of all our patience during long weeks, when we had to explore the upper strata, containing lots of skeletons, mummies and coffins of people who were buried in the sand much later, at the end of pharaonic times, after Egypt had been conquered by Alexander the Great (332 B.C.) (1) . First signs of a monumental earlier structure hidden below the late burials appeared in the form of a huge accumulation of mud bricks, evidently parts of a fallen wall. Their presence betrayed the existence of an important Old Kingdom tomb further toward the pyramid. But this discovery was made at the end of our campaign in 1996, and we had to wait another year until the excavation could be continued.

Slowly removing the mud brick "curtain", we suddenly saw the edge of a cliff shelf decorated with a large-size hieroglyphic sign hewn in the surface of the rock. Soon we had realised that we were facing an architrave bearing a biographic inscription with some titles of a high-rank official. We were sure that, as usually in such texts, his name would be found at the end of the inscription. But at the very moment of reaching it, the excited archaeologists were struck by a "curse of the pharaoh": a sudden sand storm of unbelievable power. 

Never during my more than thirty years of excavating in Egypt did I experience something like this. Our pavilion was blown out and flew toward the pyramid, exposing our sophisticated equipment and the documentation to the attack of the sand. The latter penetrated everything. At the same moment our car, which was on the way to the village, had a heavy accident and was then immobilised for more than one week. Right at the beginning of the tempest, two groups of high officials and colleagues came to visit our work and insisted on being guided, which I did while swallowing handfuls of sand. Our photographer had to spend next night on the preliminary cleaning of the cameras.

But next morning, the air was limpid and we could quitely uncover the façade of a unique funerary chapel hewn in the rock. This frontal is decorated with long hieroglyphic inscriptions, partly sculpted in the rock surface, and partly shaped in a layer of gypsum or mortar. In the lower register of this rich decoration, the tomb owner is represented eight times as walking toward the narrow entrance left in the middle of the wall. The doorway leads toward a rectangular room, whose walls are decorated with reliefs and paintings of unique beauty, showing the deceased in various daily life scenes (2). Unlike in other tombs of that period, the coulours are preserved as if the artist had left this room yesterday. Not only is this decoration of unique beauty, but also full of informations about a nobleman of primary importane, whose existence was so far completely ignored. Everything seems to have been extraordinary and exuberant in his life, beginning with his three names found in the inscription above the entrance to his funerary chapel. Beside his "great name" Meref-nebef (The one who loves his Lord), there is his "fair name" Fefi (typical of 6th Dynasty, when some pharaoh were called Teti or Pepi), and the name "Wenis-anch" (Live the (pharaoh) Wenis), commemorating to the last king of 5th dynasty, and thus dating "our" tomb to the beginning of the next one. Among his numerous titles, that of "vizier" is the most important. In ancient Egyptian political and social hierarchy, a vizier was the first person after the pharaoh.

Even more surprising is the aboundance of his wives. Four of them are repeatedly represented as a quartet of female harpists kneeling beside their husband in various scenes sculpted and painted on the walls of his funerary chapel. One of these scenes shows half-nude female dancers performing acrobatic dances in front of Fefi and a lady seated beside him. Unfortunately, the latter remains anonymous, because the inscription labelling this scene is not preserved. Perhaps is she the same mysterious lady who accompanies the vizier in one of the two scenes decorating lateral walls of the chapel's doorway (Figs. 2 and 3)? Called Meres-ankh (The one who enjoys life), she does not bear any title at all, which seems most extraordinary, if not unique among the representations of women in Old Kingdom tombs. Knowing the moral code of high-rank politicians in various epochs, we may possibly qualify her as an "intern". 

Two of his "regular" wives accompany our vizier on the papyrus boat in the scene of hunting, which belongs to masterpieces of Ancient Egyptian art (Fig. 4). On the background of the papyrus thicket and nenuphars, the artist has shown a colorful picture of the Egyptian fauna. The tragedy of kingfisher nestlings raped by a hyena and looking desperately at their parents who flutter their wings over the nest, contrasts with the jaunty calm of other animals, and particularly with the majestic beauty of a butterfly. 

But the harmony of these idyllic pictures is disturbed by some ominous signs already at the entrance to the funerary chapel. Particularly striking is the purposeful destruction of all figures representing Fefi's sons except for one of them, who bears his father's "fair name". Chiselled out are also some fragments of the labels, specifically those that refer to the vizier's close relationship with the King. Who was the iconoclast who dared destroying the word "King" at such exposed places ? 

Inside the chapel, the representations of Fefi junior's brothers appear to be chiselled out with a determination which may only witness of a conflict that ravaged the family after the vizier passed away. It was probably the victorious son, bearing his father's names, who even dared to replace a part of the original decoration with a scene showing himself and his wife. This beautiful scene, completely different in style from the earlier reliefs and paintings found inside the chapel, has been executed on slabs of stone inserted into the fragile surface of the rock. We ignore, whether the vizier had ever been burried in his beautiful tomb. His sarcophagus, found at the bottom of a deep shaft hewn in the rock just behind his funerary chapel, was empty and unfinished. Unfinished remained also the façade of the chapel, in which the builders had started, but never finished hewing a parallel, though smaller chapel, probably for one of the vizier's sons or wives. We may presume that his death came as quickly as his career, and he might have fallen a victim to a sudden and dramatic change on Egyptian throne.

Reading "between the lines", we reconstruct the tempestuous story of a family that sheds more light on the twilight of the Old Kingdom, the times when the power of the pharaohs started shaking for the first time in the history, and many prerogatives of the ruler were simply usurped by his highest officials.

Unfortunately, the quarrels between Fefi's sons were not the only cause of the damages suffered by the splendid reliefs and paintings. What has also affected their integrity was the extreme friability of the local rock, in which the tomb was carved. This muddy limestone was constantly braking and desintegrating already under the hands of ancient artists who had to patch up the surface of the walls before they started sculpting and painting. Large parts of the decoration have been modelled in a thick layer of gypsum or mortar filling irregular concavities in the rock. At some places, the artist was obliged to carve the hieroglyphs on separate stone slabs of better quality or to model them in a kind of plombs made of "artificial stone" that have later filled the largest cavities.

The problems of ancient artists are nowadays shared by the team of conservators working with our mission. Trying to save these masterpieces for posterity, they have to fight not only against the friability of the stone bearing the reliefs, but first of all against the salt accumulating on their surface. Their extremely difficult task requires both theoretical knowledge, experience and much of artistic sensitivity, for each part of the wall surprises them with another challenge. And the general conviction, that Polish conservators are among the best in the world, does only stimulate their ambition. In order to protect the tomb against any intrusion from outside and to create a microclimate favourable to the paintings, we have built a solid shelter, which would have been impossible without a special sponsorship by the Rector of the Warsaw University.

Our further excavations extend east- and westwards from the tomb of the vizier. In order to check the topography and stratigraphy of this area in ancient times, we intend to make a broad cross-section between the step pyramid and the longitudinal depression visible in the West. This depression may correspond to a "dry moat" that egiptologists expect to find at this place. First results of this research have surprised everybody. They show that in the 3rd millenium B.C., at the beginning of pharaonic times, when the climat in Egypt was completely different, and the surface of the rock was exposed to torrential rains, there was a kind of "natural pyramid" consisting of a sequence of large cliff ledges. Each of these became a cemetery for Egyptian noblemen whose tombs are partly hewn in the rock (vertical shafts with funerary chambers), and partly built upon its surface (chapels with mud brick walls). The "false doors", i.e. stone plates bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions, that are sometimes still preserved in these tombs, show that people burried nearby the pyramid belonged to the most intime company of the pharaohs who lived at the end of 3rd millenium B.C. Some of these inscription identify, e.g., priestesses of Hathor (ancient Egyptian goddess of love) whose relationship to the ruler is best defined by their title "the king's sole adornment".

Totally different is the western part of this cemetery. Hewn in the rock inside a huge cliff ledge, there are some long corridors and other structures varying in their shape and function (Fig. 1). The most intriguing discovery made in the campaign  2000 (September-October) was the content of the chapel hewn at the end of a 22 mrs long corridor which has the entrance in this ledge (Fig. 5). It contained a unique deposit of most unusual animals (e.g. more than 5 huge catfish, 2 wild pigs etc.), found at the top of a filling that contained a perfectly preserved, 2,60 mrs long wooden harpoon placed inside a cylindrical casing, the first object of this kind found in Egypt so far (3).

What was the function of this mysterious object decorated with two representations of sinuous snakes carved in the wood ? Are there any futher cliff ledges at a deeper level, below the huge stratum of sand extending westwards ? Where is the bottom of this most incredible "canyon" and how far does it extend northwards ?

Our further excavations may answer some of these questions, if sand storms at the crucial moments do not turn out to be too strong. 

 1., Karol Myśliwiec, The Twilight of Ancient Egypt. First Millenium B.C.E., Cornell University Press, Ithaka and London, 2000, pp. 185-187, color plates IX-X a-b.
 2., Five Wives & A Girlfriend. Exploring the Fabulous Tomb of a High-Living Politician, Discovering Archaeology, July/August 1999, pp. 54-67; Id., La découverte d'un vizir, Pour la Science (French edition of "Scientific American"), April 2000, pp. 34-41; Id., Meref-nebef: Der Berater des Pharaos, Spektrum der Wissenschaft (German edition of "Scientific American"), December 1999, pp. 54-60; as well as in Polish, Italian, Greek and Japanese issues of "Scientific American".
3., New Mysteries from Saqqara, Egypt Revealed, March/April 2000, pp. 22-31, www.egyptrevealed.com