Deep in an underground tunnel near the ancient capital of Memphis sits a polished granite box over 12 feet long and weighing roughly 60 tons, and it was built not for a pharaoh but for a bull. This deep dive explores the Serapeum of Saqqara, the catacomb that served for about 1,400 years as the burial place of the sacred Apis bulls, living incarnations of the creator god Ptah chosen by strict physical markings described by Herodotus: a black calf with a white triangle on its forehead, an eagle shape on its back, double tail hairs and a scarab-shaped growth under the tongue.

We trace the evolution of the burials from isolated tombs where the bulls were ritually consumed and their bones packed in bitumen, to the Lesser Vaults centralized under Khaemweset, son of Ramesses II, to the Greater Vaults extended by the Ptolemies to 350 meters. The e ...