Discovering Ancient Saqqara After 4400 Years

        

Lantern Slide Collection: Views, Objects: Egypt.
- Apis Tombs, passage showing Sarcophagi Recess,
Sakkara., n.d., Brooklyn Museum Archives (Taken from
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saqqara)

I watched on Netflix a documentary about Saqqara and was fascinated by the skillful work describing one of the most impressive archeological findings in the world.

According to Wikipedia, Saqqara is a large, ancient burial place found in Egypt. Saqqara used for burial in  ancient Egyptian. Saqqara is characterized by many  pyramids, including the -famous Step pyramid of Djoser. Saqqara is located 30 km (19 mi) south of modern-day Cairo; Saqqara stretches on  an area of around seven by 1.5 km (4.35 by 0.93 mi) (Wikipedia,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saqqara ).

  The documentary describes how Egyptian archeologists discovered the ancient tomb in  Saqqara that remained untouched by human hand for 4400 years. They tried to unravel the history behind the Tomb of Saqqara.

     The documentary involves the viewer in the great discovery step by step, making the viewer part of this interesting process. The viewer is given the opportunity to accompany the archeologists and the professionals during their work. The archeologists and the professional staff openly and honestly share their inmost thoughts, feelings, and doubts. The documentary progresses like a detective story, starting from discovering the tombs themselves, the mummified bodies of family members, and finally, the Mummified body of the head of the family himself.  A fascinating mystery solved!

       All the more so, the staff hypothesizes about the relationship between the family members. The staff bethat one of the family members described on the hieroglyphs on the tomb's wall is actually not a family member by blood, suggesting that adultery  was part of the family members' lives. All the family members were mummified there more than 4400 years ago. Indeed, by progressing step by step, this hypothesis becomes gradually supported by the staff who invites the viewer to their work in real-time.  

     Interestingly, the documentary exposes most interesting additional findings. Among them are the first-ever recorded finding of a lion's mummy next to the family member's mummies, which gains substantial support as the documentary progresses, according to which the family members died of malaria.

      In short, this highly watchable and informative documentary would be of interest to history buffs, and, at the same, thanks to helpful diagrams and visuals, accessible to the lay viewer.