Preface and Acknowledgements

This book is the product of a years’ long interest in the New Kingdom necropolis at Saqqara, probably ignited during a lecture offered to prospective Egyptology students at Leiden University way back in 1999. The sixteen-year old me had to wait another two years before enrolling in (Near Eastern) Archaeology in 2001, and it was not until 2007 that I could finally participate in the excavations at Saqqara organised by the Leiden Museum of Antiquities (rmo) and Leiden University. My deep interest in the site ultimately led to a PhD research proposal, which was awarded with an iprs research grant by the Australian government, and an mqres grant awarded by Macquarie University. It allowed me to conduct my doctoral research at that university in Sydney, Australia (2012–2015). The thesis-by-publication model that I adopted resulted in a number of academic journal articles that mainly focused on various monumental tombs built for the Memphite elite in the 2nd millennium bce. These tombs were accessed by early-19th century explorers and antiquities diggers, and had since been lost under the shifting desert sands of the North Saqqara plateau. My study combined the information available through these early explorers, such as mid-19th century photographs capturing now-lost monuments, tomb elements dispersed over public and private collections around the globe, and the actual archaeological data excavated in the last half a century or so. Still, many questions remained unanswered after finishing my research. For one thing, up to that time, there had been no studies that aimed to contextualise the known tombs in their environmental setting. The present publication aims to fill this lacuna.

This book is the outcome of a study conducted within the research project entitled ‘The Walking Dead at Saqqara: The Making of a Cultural Geography’, funded with a vidi Talent Scheme research grant awarded by the Dutch Research Council (nwo), dossier no. 016.vidi.174.032, and hosted at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (lias). Lara Weiss (National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden) conceived the idea of writing the research proposal at around the time of the ‘Abusir and Saqqara in the Year 2015’ conference held in Prague. We then combined forces with Ramadan Hussein (Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen) and wrote the proposal in fruitful collaboration. Unfortunately, we did not succeed in securing funding at our first attempt, so we decided to rework the proposal and re-submit it the next year. All extra efforts paid off, and the project, led by Lara Weiss, was officially started in autumn 2017. Due to Ramadan’s obligations on another successfully funded project of his, the third position within the research team was then taken up by Huw Twiston Davies, who had just received his PhD from the University of Liverpool.

During the last two years of my fellowship, the covid-19 pandemic made doing research particularly challenging. Access to resources was greatly limited due to the year-long closure of the Netherlands Institute of the Near East (nino) library in Leiden. In addition, conducting archaeological fieldwork at Saqqara has been impossible since the spring season of 2019. Thus, altogether two brief seasons of work in 2017 and 2018 were used to gather new data from the field. It also meant that much of the initial research plans had to be changed. For example, the projected geophysical subsurface survey of the area surrounding the archaeological concession area had to be postponed, and it has not been possible to obtain gps data on the spot, necessary for the production of the plans used through this book. All in all, this study relied more heavily on archival and published material and less on fresh finds from the field—although there was no shortage of material to work on!

The lion’s share of the last two years of work were done from the home ‘office’, often in the company of an enthusiastic toddler and, since almost a year now, a newborn competing for attention also. Absolutely much fun, but not necessarily contributing much to one’s research productivity, especially in the critical final stages of writing a book. The combination of factors just described led to the situation where the present book was far from finished towards the end of contract at Leiden University. This created a rather stressful situation, further augmented by the uncertain future of an early-career researcher. It was therefore a big relief to receive news that my research proposal for a next project was granted. It secured my position as a postdoctoral researcher (Chargé de recherches) of the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique—fnrs at the University of Liège in Belgium. Much of the writing of the present book was done during the first four months of my fellowship at Liège, as well as during the final months of my one year dual appointment at Leiden University and ku Leuven University (postdoctoral teaching position). Therefore, in addition to nwo and Leiden University’s lias, my two other employers should also be thanked for making it possible to spend time on writing this book.

The first individuals that I should like to thank here are the three members of the Walking Dead research team, Lara Weiss, Huw Twiston Davies, and Ramadan Hussein. It is largely due to the confidence and perseverance of Lara that this project came into existence in the first place.

This research relies heavily on the data gathered by the former ees-Leiden and current Leiden-Turin archaeological expedition to Saqqara in collaboration with the 3d Survey Group of the Politecnico di Milano. I am much indebted to all past and present field directors, in particular Geoffrey Martin, Maarten Raven, René van Walsem, Lara Weiss, Christian Greco, Paolo Del Vesco, and Daniel Soliman. All other past and present team members are also much thanked, and I should like to single out Barbara Aston, who has always been happy to answer my questions and offer feedback on my written work, and Corinna Rossi, who shared preliminary results of her work.

Writing this book would not have been possible without the permission to work at Saqqara, which the Egyptian authorities granted to the Leiden-Turin expedition and its forerunners. I should like to express my gratitude to H.E. Prof Khaled el-Anany, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, the current and previous Directors and Chief Inspectors of Saqqara, colleagues in the antiquities department, and all others who have worked with the expedition over the years.

At Saqqara, I should like to thank my dear friends and colleagues, Ola el-Aguizy and Mohammad M. Youssef. They have been incredibly generous in sharing information and keeping me up to date on the results of their archaeological work. I am much looking forward to many more years of working in the field alongside them.

In a way, the present book builds further on the subject explored for my PhD, and I thank my former supervisors, Boyo Ockinga and Susanne Binder, for their guidance during the 3.5 years spent working Down Under. My new project at the University of Liège explores different aspects related to the Memphite necropolis, and I should like to thank Dimitri Laboury for exchanging many ideas.

In the course of my postdoctoral fellowship in Leiden, I have had the pleasure to participate in various conferences and projects related to the subject under study. It created opportunities to engage with the material from different angles, and to exchange ideas with a large number of scholars. In particular, I should like to thank Filip Coppens and all members of the Czech Science Foundation research project ‘Continuity, Discontinuity, and Change’ (2019–2022) at the Czech Institute of Egyptology of Charles University, Prague, in particular the members of the New Kingdom workgroup, Gabriele Pieke and Dana Bělohoubková; Fredrik Hagen, Rune Olsen and Daniel Soliman, organisers of the ‘Tomb Construction in New Kingdom Egypt’ international conference held at the University of Copenhagen (2017); and Ángeles Jiménez-Higueras, who initiated the ‘New Approaches to Ancient Egyptian Funerary Landscapes’ session during the 6th Landscape Archaeology Conference in Madrid (2021).

Fellow Saqqara enthusiasts (in addition to those already mentioned), Anne Herzberg, Beatrix Gessler-Löhr, Vincent Oeters, Jacobus van Dijk, Alain-Pierre Zivie, Hana Navrátilová, Julia Hamilton, Elaine Sullivan, Tarek Tawfik, and Daniela Picchi are thanked for sharing their thoughts on the subject, and for offering very helpful insights.

I am also grateful to all those who helped me with the photographic material and line drawings published in this books: W. Raymond Johnson (The Epigraphic Survey, Oriental Institute, The University of Chicago); Robbert Jan Looman (rmo photo department); Caris-Beatrice Arnst (Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin); Athena van der Perre (The sura Project, Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels); Claudia Lacher-Raschdorff and Mustafa Tupev (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Abteilung Kairo); Campbell Price and John Dittmer (Glasgow Museums Saqqara Geophysical Survey Project), Ian Carroll (Institute of Archaeology, University College London); JP Witteman (Buro JP); and Anna Consonni (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze).

Sasja van der Vaart-Verschoof read the final draft of the book manuscript, and corrected the English text, saving me from numerous errors and ‘Dunglish’ grammar.

The final manuscript was professionally handled by the skilful people at Brill Academic Publishers, and I should like to express my gratitude to Katelyn Chin, acquisitions editor Ancient Near East & Jewish Studies, for accepting the book proposal, Emma de Looij, associate editor, for guiding me through the process, the chane series editors, and the two anonymous peer reviewers of the manuscript.

Finally, I would like to thank my family for their unwavering support. The research-related absences in particular put a lot of pressure on the home situation, especially one that includes young kids. Thanks are in particular due to my wife, Karuna, for her understanding, patience, and love. My kids, Rohan (2017) and Bodhi (2021), made the coming about of this book a big challenge, yet enriched my life in so many ways. I hope they will remain as curious-minded as they are now, and it is to them that I dedicate this book.

Leiden and Liège, February 2022