GEOAR CHAEO LOGI CAL AND EN VI RON MEN TAL WORK AT THE SA CRED ANI MAL NE CROPO LIS, NORTH SAQQARA, EGYPT

Studia Quaternaria, vol. 30, no. 2 (2013): 83 89. DOI: 10.2478/squa-2013-0008 GEOAR CHAEO LOGI CAL AND EN VI RON MEN TAL WORK AT THE SA CRED ANI MAL NE CROPO LIS, NORTH SAQQARA, EGYPT Paul T. Nichol son 1, John Har ri son 2, Salima Ik ram 3, Erin Early 4, Ying Qin 4 1 School of His tory, Ar chae ology and Re lig ion, Car diff Uni ver sity, Per ci val Build ing, Co lum Drive, Car diff. CF10 3EU. U.K; e- mail: nichol sonpt@car diff.ac.uk 2 W.M. Keck Chair of En gi neer ing Rock Me chan ics, Las sonde In sti tute of Min ing, Dept. of Civil En gi neer ing, Uni ver sity of To ronto, To ronto. M5S 1A4, Can ada; e- mail: john.har ri son@uto ronto.ca 3 Egyp tol ogy Unit Head, Ameri can Uni ver sity in Cairo, P. O. Box 74, Road 90, Ta gammu 5, New Cairo 11825, Egypt; e- mail: salimaikram@gmail.com 4 Con tact via Dr. Ju dith Bun bury, Uni ver sity of Cam bridge, Dept. of Earth Sci ences, Down ing Street, Cam bridge, Cam bridge shire, CB2 3EQ. U.K; e- mail: jmb21@esc.cam.ac.uk Ab stract This pa per sum ma rises work un der taken dur ing the Cat acombs of Anubis pro ject which has ex am ined the Dog Cat a - comb at North Saqqara. It ex am ines the con di tion and nat u ral de cay of the mon u ment as well as look ing at the en vi - rons of the Lake of Abusir at the north ern end of the site. Key words: Saqqara, Dog Cata comb, Ibis, Rela tive Hu mid ity, Auger ing INTRODUCTION The Cat a combs of Anubis pro ject is di rected by Nichol - son and has largely been funded by the Na tional Geo graphic So ci ety. The work pre sented here is the re sult of a team ef fort and Nichol son has sum ma rised the work of his col leagues who will pub lish full re ports of their work in the near fu ture. Thanks are due not only to those whose work di rectly informs this pa per but to all those who have taken part in the pro ject. The work at the Dog Cat a comb, whose mum mi fied in - hab it ants were sa cred to the dog- or jackal-headed de ity Anubis, has been un der taken in or der to better un der stand the con struc tion of the mon u ment, its dat ing and the spe cies, gen der and age pro files of the an i mals it houses. An in ves ti - ga tion of the as so ci ated tem ple was un der taken by Jeffreys and Smith (1988) dur ing the late 1970s. As part of the pro ject it was de cided to in ves ti gate the ques tion of the Lake of Abusir a now dry lake which is well at tested un til well into the 20 th Cen tury and which has some - times been sug gested as a pos si ble breed ing ground for Sa - cred Ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus). These birds had their own cat a comb on the West ern side of the Saqqara pla teau in the area in ves ti gated by Pro fes sor W.B. Em ery (1903 1971). Em ery s un timely death meant that the work was never fully pub lished by him, but it has been con ve niently sum ma - rised by Ba con (1971: 230 234) and in greater de tail by Smith (1974). There are pre lim i nary re ports by Em ery in the Jour nal of Egyp tian Ar chae ol ogy through the 1960s. The work at the site was sub se quently con tin ued by Pro fes sors Harry Smith and Jeffrey Mar tin in the 1970s, and by Smith and Nichol son in the 1990s (on the bird cat a combs see Mar - tin 1981, Davies and Smith 2005, and more gen er ally Nichol - son 2005) The pres ence of a sub stan tial body of wa ter in the vi cin - ity of the cat a combs may have im pli ca tions not only for the bird pop u la tions at Saqqara but also for some of the other an i - mals rep re sented in the cat a combs in clud ing, for ex am ple, cats and dogs. Fig ure 1 shows the lo ca tion of the cat a combs and the ap prox i mate po si tion of the Lake of Abusir. THE DOG CATA COMB One of the sig nif i cant fea tures of the ar chae ol ogy of the Dog Cat a comb is its ap par ent lack of doc u men ta tion. Cur rent re search sug gests that it is first at tested in 1897 when it ap - pears on De Mor gan s Carte de la Nécropole de la Memphite (De Mor gan 1897) where it is pre sented with out com ment (Fig. 2). The key to the map as cribes it to the New King dom (1550 1069 B.C.) though the grounds for this are un known. The map ac tu ally shows two dog cat a combs, a small one which is not cur rently ac ces si ble and which is thought to have par tially col lapsed and a larger one which has been the fo cus of the work re ported on here. It is pos si ble that De Mor - gan s dat ing co mes from finds made in the smaller of the two cat a combs but at pres ent this can only be spec u lated upon. It is likely that his Carte is a com pi la tion of sur veys and in for - ma tion pro vided by many work ers and it is pos si ble that the New King dom at tri bu tion co mes from one of these al though no other source has yet been iden ti fied. Since the smaller cat -

84 P. T. NICHOL SON et al. Fig. 1. Map of North Saqqara show ing the lo ca tion of the an i mal cat a combs. (Drawn by J. Hodges). a comb is cur rently in ac ces si ble it may be that it be longs to the New King dom (1550 1069 B.C.) whilst the larger (here af ter re ferred to as the cat a comb) is be lieved to be long to the Late Pe riod (747 332 B.C.) per haps ex tend ing through the Ptol e - maic Pe riod (332 30 B.C.) and into the early Ro man (af ter 30 B.C.). Ra dio car bon dates on sam ples of bone and other ma te rial are cur rently with the S.C.A./M.S.A. ap proved lab - o ra tory at the French In sti tute in Cairo. The cur rent pro ject has re-sur veyed the cat a comb and found in con sis ten cies in the De Mor gan plan (Fig. 3). The an i mal cat a combs are cut into the up per cal car e ous beds of the Sakkara mem ber of the Lower Eocene Maadi for - ma tion (Youssef et al., 1984), which at this lo cal ity dip slightly to the West. This mem ber forms the bulk of the Saqqara Abu Sir pla teau, and con sists of al ter nat ing light yel - low, hard lime stones and softer yel low marls (Fig. 4). These rocks are thought to have formed in a la goonal en vi ron ment in a shal low sea shel tered by many is lands (Gingerich, 1992; Peters et al., 2009; Zalmout and Gingerich, 2012). The marl beds con tain many late diagenetic gyp sum veins (Pe ters et al., 2009). The Sakkara mem ber is over lain on the East side of the pla teau by the early Pleis to cene Idfu Grav els (Youssef et al., 1984; Said 1981). The dog cat a comb it self com prises an ax ial cor ri dor ap prox i mately 173 m long from which open, on ei ther side, a se ries of shorter tun nels the lon gest of which is about 65 m. It is into these tun nels that the mum mi - fied an i mals were placed. The cat a comb has been ex ca vated such that the roof/wall junc tion fol lows the same bed ding plane through out, giv ing a lime stone roof and marl walls. As the roof fol lows the dip of the beds, the el e va tion of the cat a - comb re duces with dis tance from the en trance at 45.13 m to the end of the ax ial aisle at 41.03 m.

SA CRED AN I MAL NE CROP O LIS, NORTH SAQQARA, EGYPT 85 Fig. 2. Ex tract from De Mor gan s (1897) Carte de la Nécropole de la Memphite: Dahchour, Sakkarah, Abou-Sir show ing the dog cat a combs. Whilst work ing in the bird cat a combs on the West of the pla teau in the 1990s Nichol son noted that the hu mid ity, par - tic u larly in the North Ibis Cat a comb, ap peared to in crease over time. He was aware from ethnographic work in the clay mines of Deir el-gharbi (Nichol son and Patterson 1985) that hu mid ity could be a cause of col lapse and in the in ter ests of both safety and the better un der stand ing of the an cient cat a - combs he con sulted with Pro fes sor John Har ri son. In 2009 ge ol o gist Ying Qin had iden ti fied that parts of the mon u ment were sub ject to ero sion and con tin ual mi nor col lapse but in the short time avail able could not do more than re cord its pres ence whilst un der tak ing other work for the pro ject. Har - ri son, over two sea sons in 2010 and 2012 was able to ex am - ine the de te ri o ra tion of the mon u ment in greater de tail. His work showed that the marl of the Maadi for ma tion con tains the swell ing clay mont mo ril lo nite, and is in deed susceptible to changes in humidity. Similar instability has also been noted at the nearby Idut tomb (Akarish and Shoeib, 2011). These changes op er ate through out the year lead ing to the phe nom e non known as scab bing (Fig. 5) whereby, usu - ally small, flakes of rock break away from the ceil ing and walls of the cat a comb. The ev i dence of this is par tic u larly no - tice able at the bot tom of the walls of the ax ial cor ri dor and, to a slightly lesser ex tent, in the emp tied parts of the burial tun - nels. That this is less ob vi ous in the burial tun nels may well be be cause they do not ap pear to have been emp tied un til some time in the 19 th or early 20 th Cen tury A.D. and so might be ex pected to have un der gone less dra matic changes in hu - mid ity than those ex posed for lon ger as the ax ial aisle ap - pears to have been. It is not known whether or not the ax ial cor ri dor would it self have been used to hold buri als. Dur ing the 2012 sea son Omega OM-EL-USB-2-LCD rel a tive hu mid ity log gers were placed at in ter vals along the ax ial cor ri dor to mea sure changes in hu mid ity dur ing the sea -

86 P. T. NICHOL SON et al. Fig. 3. Plan of the Dog Cat a combs over laid on that by De Mor gan (1897) (shown in grey). The smaller cat a comb is cur rently in ac ces si ble and so shown only in De Mor gan s ver sion. (Plan by S. Mills, S. Wil liams and H. Nouwens). son and be yond. It was found that hu mid ity in creased to ward the rear (West) of the mon u ment with re cord ings in ex cess of 90%RH be ing noted. It is not sur pris ing to find that there were higher lev els of hu mid ity the fur ther one went into the cat a comb since the main source of fresh air was at the East where there is a mod ern, sec ond ary, en trance to the site. Any other sources of fresh air are very mi nor and the re sult of in - com pletely blocked tomb shafts which were trun cated when the dog cat a comb tun nels were quar ried. It seems likely that the pres ence of the sur vey team has had an ef fect on the rel a tive hu mid ity but since they are pres - ent for only a few weeks per year and for only a few hours each day this ef fect is un likely to be sig nif i cant in terms of the over all de te ri o ra tion of the site. How ever, the hu mid ity log - gers have been left in place and it is hoped that they can be re - moved and their data down loaded in 2013. This should al low us to see not only the ef fects work ing in the cat a comb but also the an nual cy cle of hu mid ity. What is clear from the work is that any tomb or cat a comb cut into the marls of the Maadi for ma tion at Saqqara will have a fi nite life span. Over time the scab bing of the walls will lead to their weak en ing and even tual roof col lapse. This was dem - on strated in 2012 when our col leagues at the S.C.A. showed us an area of col lapse im me di ately South of the Dog Cat a - comb and North of Pro fes sor Em ery s house and there fore in the gen eral vi cin ity of the smaller, uninvestigated, Dog Cat a comb. The pre cise lo ca tion of the cat a combs on the De Mor gan map is in ac cu rate. The new work has pre cisely de - ter mined the po si tion of the larger cat a comb but this can not yet be done for the smaller as the en trance is not cur rently vis - i ble. What had hap pened in this area was that a hole about 2.0 m in di am e ter had ap peared in the desert sur face. Care ful in ves ti ga tion re vealed that the un der ly ing rock had col lapsed leav ing a sig nif i cant void roofed only by the con creted Idfu gravel. Such col lapses are well doc u mented at Saqqara and are mon i tored by our Egyp tian col leagues. It seems that one cause of their oc cur rence is likely to be changes in hu mid ity lead ing to the col lapse of tombs and tun nels be neath the desert. The De Mor gan Carte (1897) shows a se ries of tun nels in di cated only by dot ted lines on the South side of the ax ial cor ri dor of the large dog cat a comb at its East end. Our in ves - ti ga tion showed that these were in fact ar eas of mas sive rock col lapse. What is un clear is whether they were caused by over-am bi tious quar ry ing, earth quakes or changes in hu mid - ity. In the ab sence of data on hu mid ity over time, and be cause our work is not yet fin ished, Pro fes sor Har ri son has not yet formed a con clu sion as to why the col lapse oc curred. How - ever, the lo ca tion of these gal ler ies at the East ern end of the cat a comb where air cir cu la tion would al ways have been great est might sug gest that hu mid ity was not the ma jor cause here. Earth quakes oc cur in fre quently in Egypt but can be sig -

SA CRED AN I MAL NE CROP O LIS, NORTH SAQQARA, EGYPT 87 nif i cant, the last size able one in the Saqqara area was that of 1992 but there have been nu mer ous oth ers in clud ing one of 1847 (Mekkawi et al. 2007). The date of the ma jor col lapses in the Dog Cat a comb can not yet be as cer tained with any cer - tainty other than to say that they hap pened be fore 1897. In pass ing it should be noted that the an cient quar ry men, whilst cut ting the cat a comb, dug through the re mains of a large fos sil ver te brate, pos si bly a whale. The fos sil was first noted by Qin. Al though the stra tig ra phy of the Saqqara area is not well un der stood, paleontological in ves ti ga tions sug - gest that the Maadi for ma tion at Saqqara may be com pa ra ble to the Qasr el-sagha for ma tion at Fayum and the Maadi for - ma tion at Gebel Mokattam, and thus may be ex pected to con - tain cetaceans (e.g. Basilosaurus isis, Prozeuglodon atrox, Saghacetus Osiris or Dorudon stromeri) or sirinians (e.g. Eotheroides sp., Protosiren sp. or Eosiren libyca) (Gingerich, 1992; see also Under wood et al. 2011). The lo ca tion of the fos sil, at the base of a sand stone bed, ac cords with re cent find ings at Wadi el-hitan (Pe ters et al., 2009) It is hoped that it will be fully in ves ti gated by a palaeontologist dur ing 2013. It is be lieved that no ver te brate fos sils have hith erto been re - corded in the Maadi for ma tion at Saqqara, as these rocks have pre vi ously been re corded as be ing de void of fos sils (Youssef et al., 1984). THE FAUNA OF THE CAT A COMB This is not the place to go into any de tail re gard ing the spe cies of an i mal in terred in the Dog Cat a comb as a sum mary pub li ca tion is in press (Ikram et al. in press) and it is in tended that the over all pub li ca tion will take place in 2014. How ever, the work by Pro fes sor Salima Ikram and her team of fau nal spe cial ists has dem on strated that a range of spe cies are pres ent in the cat a comb and whilst the ma jor ity are in deed dogs or other canids there are also cats and birds. More sur pris ing are the es ti mated num bers of an i mals in the cat a comb. Our pres ent es ti mates, based upon the num ber of in di vid u als per 15 litre sam pling con tainer sug gest that, if the ax ial cor ri dor was also used for buri als and these were stacked to a sim i lar depth to the burial tun nels, some 8,000,000 an i mals would be pres ent. These large num bers re sult from the prac tice of mum mi fy ing very young an i mals, of ten newly born and thus of very small size. The an i mal mum mies would be ded i cated by pil grims to the site of Saqqara who, by pro vid ing a fit ting burial for one of the god s spe cies, would hope that the an i mal would in ter - cede with the de ity on their be half. Dur ing the Late Pe riod such ded i ca tions of vo tive an i mals be came a com mon fea ture of Egyp tian pop u lar re li gion but the num bers re quired ne ces - si tates a re-eval u a tion of the way the cult must have op er ated (see Ikram et al. in press; Dunand and Lichtenberg 2005). It must be sup posed that in the city of Mem phis it self, and per haps in its en vi rons pos si bly in clud ing the fringes of the Saqqara pla teau, there were farms for the pro duc tion of pup pies and dogs for the cult. It may well be that pil grims to Saqqara were un aware of the ex is tence of such es tab lish - ments and be lieved that the an i mals for whose burial they were pay ing were large dogs such as those which they might have seen in the Anubieion tem ple it self, or that there was a wil ful ig no rance of such farms. As yet the re la tion ship be - Fig. 4. En trance to the Dog Cat a comb. Ex posed rhyth mic se - quence of lime stone (white) and marl (yel low) beds form ing the Cat a comb roof. Note white gyp sum veins in the marl. The width of the door way seen at bot tom cen tre is c.0.75 m. (Photo: J.P. Har ri son). tween breed ers, pil grims and priests of Anubis is un known but it cer tainly should not be re garded with 21 st cen tury sen si - tiv i ties. Those who ded i cated mum mies be lieved that they were do ing the best for the an i mal (and for them selves) by giv ing it a fit ting burial for its eter nal life. The breed ing es tab lish ments would have needed ac cess to wa ter. Those in Mem phis would doubt less have had ac cess to the Nile and to wells reach ing its wa ter ta ble, but those fur - ther away may have needed other sources. For this rea son in - ves ti ga tion of the Lake of Abusir was car ried out. The Lake of Abusir The so-called Lake of Abusir is well known to ar chae - ol o gists work ing at Saqqara, but its na ture and the time at which it dried up are not well known. For this rea son ge ol o - gist Erin Earl (a stu dent of ge ol ogy un der the su per vi sion of Dr. Ju dith Bunbury, Cam bridge Uni ver sity) was asked to in - ves ti gate ev i dence for the lake (Earl 2011). That such a body of wa ter ex isted in an cient times seems to be at tested by a ref er ence in de motic payri to the Lake of Pha raoh (Ray 1978: 153) and is prob a bly in the same place as the Birket Mukhtar Pa sha known from re cent times (Earl 2011: 13) though whether the same body of wa ter had re - mained through out is un cer tain. It has been the sub ject of sev eral re cent pa pers re ferred to by Earl and which will be

88 P. T. NICHOL SON et al. Fig. 5. Look ing along the ax ial aisle of the Dog Cat a comb. The ef fects of scab bing can be seen at the foot of the walls. (Photo: P.T. Nichol son). more fully dis cussed in her re port (see for ex am ple Reader 2009, Cílek et al. 2012). Earl s re search was con ducted in the now dry area to the North of the Saqqara pla teau near the mod ern vil lage of Abusir, which to day ex tends to the North-East ern slope of the pla teau. The area in which she worked is over looked by what was the main en trance to the North Ibis Cat a comb and it is sup posed that the lake might have served as a breed ing ground for the sa cred ibis birds (Threskiornis aethiopicus). The work in volved tak ing a se ries of hand-augered cores and at tempt ing to date them by means of the small frag ments of pot tery which they con tained as well as char ac ter is ing the sed i ments which com prised the cores. This method has been pi o neered by Da vid Jeffreys at Saqqara (see Bunbury and Jeffreys 2009) Ju dith Bunbury and An gus Gra ham in the same re gion as well as else where in Egypt. The re sults of Earl s work sug gest that there was in deed a body of wa ter pres ent in the re gion of the pre sumed Lake dur ing the Late Pe riod (c.747 332 B.C.), the peak of the an i mal cults. The lake was prob a bly sea sonal and would dry up dur ing the hot sum mer months, though it would prob a bly have been suf fi - cient to sup port the breed ing of the spe cies. Whether the birds were cared for in any way by the priests who over saw the ibis cult is not yet known, though it is a pos si bil ity since they have a low breed ing suc cess rate (BBC 2012) and would have been re quired in very large num bers. The same body of wa ter may have served to sup ply the tem ples of the Saqqara pla teau, in clud ing the Anubieion, as well as some of the breed ing cen tres for dogs re quired for the catacomb. CONCLUSION The work at the Dog Cat a comb is not yet com plete. It is hoped that a sea son in 2013 will pro vide the nec es sary data on rel a tive hu mid ity, the fos sil fauna and other as pects of the work re ported on here so that a fi nal pub li ca tion can be pro - duced dur ing 2014. What is clear is that the Dog Cat a comb was just one part of an im por tant and ex tremely large scale op er a tion to breed and mum mify an i mals for burial at North Saqqara. The geoarchaeological work is help ing to shape the in ter pre ta tion of the site, un der stand the means by which it is nat u rally de te - ri o rat ing and sug gest ways in which it might best be pre - served for the long term. Acknowledgements Nichol son is grate ful to Erin Earl, John Har ri son, Salima Ikram and Ying Qin for their work on the pro ject and for the re ports on which this sum mary is based. They will pro duce full re ports as part of the over all pub li ca tion in due course. Thanks are also due to other mem bers of the pro ject Lou ise Bertini, Delyth Hurley, Sabine Har ding, and Ariel Singer of the fau - nal team, Hendrikje Nouwens, Steve Mills and Scott Wil liams for their work on the sur vey, Tessa Baber for il lus tra tions and Mari Rygh for Conservation work.

SA CRED AN I MAL NE CROP O LIS, NORTH SAQQARA, EGYPT 89 The pro ject would not be pos si ble with out the gen er ous co-op - er a tion of our col leagues in the Su preme Coun cil for Antiqui - ties/min is try of State for An tiq ui ties in Egypt and their representatives at Saqqara. Fund ing for the pro ject has come from the National Geo graphic So ci ety (grants #8797-10 and GEFNE 4-11), the Wain - wright Fund at Uni ver sity of Ox ford, Thames Val ley An cient Egypt So ci ety and the School of His tory, Ar chae ol ogy and Re li gion, Car - diff Uni ver sity to all of whom the au thor is in debted. Sur vey ing equip ment was kindly loaned by the Egypt Ex plo ra tion Society. REFERENCES Akarish A.I.M. and Shoeib A.S.A., 2011. The role of rock com po si - tion in the de te ri o ra tion of wall paint ings, Saqqara Area, Egypt: In for ma tion from pe trog ra phy and min er al ogy. Austra - lian J. Ba sic App. Sci., 5(5): 1144 1153. Ba con, E. 1971. Ar chae ol ogy: Dis cov er ies in the 1960s. Lon don: Cassell. BBC 2012. Sa cred Ibis. http://www.bbc.co.uk/na ture/wildfacts/ factfiles/3106.shtml (Ac cessed March 9th, 2013). Bunbury, J. and Jeffreys, D.G. 2009. Real and lit er ary land scapes in an cient Egypt. Cam bridge Ar chae o log i cal Jour nal 21, (1): 65 75. Cílek, V., Bárta, M., Lisá, L., Pokorná, A., Jurícková, L., Bruna, V., Moneim, A., Mahmoud, A., Bajer, A., Novák, J., Beneš, J., 2012. Diachronic de vel op ment of the Lake of Abusir dur ing the third mil len nium BC. Qua ter nary In ter na tional, 266, (17 July)14 24. Davies, S. and Smith, H.S. 2005. The Sa cred An i mal Ne crop o lis at North Saqqara: The Fal con Com plex and Cat a comb: The Ar - chae o log i cal Re port. Lon don: E.E.S. De Mor gan, J. 1897. Carte de la Nécropole de la Memphite: Dahchour, Sakkarah, Abou-Sir. Cairo: Institut Français de l Archéologie Orientale. Dunand, F. and Lichtenberg,R. 2005. Des animaux et des homes. Paris: Edi tions du Rocher. Earl, E. 2011. The An cient Lakes of Abusir. Cam bridge Uni ver sity De part ment of Earth Sci ences: Un pub lished Part III In de pend - ent Re search Pro ject. Gingerich P.D., 1992. Ma rine mam mals (Cetacea and Sirenia) from the Eocene of Gebel Mokattam and Fayum, Egypt: Stra tig ra - phy, age, and paleoenvironments. Uni ver sity of Mich i gan Pa - pers on Pa le on tol ogy,30, 84 p. Ikram, S., Nichol son, P.T., Bertini, L. and Hurley, D. In press. Kill - ing Man s Best Friend. Ar chae o log i cal Re view from Cam - bridge. Jeffreys, D.G. and Smith, H.S. 1988. The Anubieion At Saqqara I: The Set tle ment and The Tem ple Pre cinct. Lon don: E.E.S. Mar tin, G.T. 1981. The Sa cred An i mal Ne crop o lis at North Saqqara. Lon don: E.E.S. Mekkawi, M., El-Sayed, F., Hawad, H.A.S., Saleh, S. and Hassib, G. 2007. Subsurface struc ture and seis mic ity stud ies in the Nile Delta area, Egypt. Jour nal of Ap plied Geo phys ics 6 (2): 29 46. Nichol son, P.T. and Patterson, H.L. 1985. Pot tery mak ing in Up per Egypt: an ethnoarchaeological study. World Ar chae ol ogy 17 (2): 222 239. Nichol son, P.T. 2005. The Sa cred An i mal Ne crop o lis at North Saqqara: the cults and their cat a combs. In Ikram, S. (ed.) Di - vine Crea tures. Cairo: Amer i can Uni ver sity in Cairo Press: 44 71. Pe ters S.E., Antar M.S.M., Zalmout I.S., Gingerich P.D., 2009. Se - quence strati graphic con trol on pres er va tion of late Eocene whales and other ver te brates at Wadi Al-Hitan, Egypt. PA- LAIOS, 24(5): 290 302. Ray, J.D. 1978. The world of North Saqqara. World Ar chae ol ogy 10 (2), 149 157. Reader, C. 2009. The ge ol ogy of Abusir. In M. Barta (Ed.) Abusir XIII Abusir South 2: tomb com plex of the vi zier Qar, his sons Qar Ju nior and Senedjemib, and Iykai. Prague: Czech In sti tute of Egyptology, 11 19. Said, R. 1981. The Geo log i cal Evo lu tion of the River Nile. New York: Springer. Smith, H.S. 1974. A Visit to An cient Egypt. Warminster: Aris and Phillips. Under wood, C.J., Ward, D.J,, King, C, Antar, S.M., Zalmout, I.S. and Gingerich, P.D. 2011. Shark and ray fau nas in the Mid dle and Late Eocene of the Fayum area, Egypt. Pro ceed ings of the Geologists Association 122, 47 66. Youssef M., Cherif O., Boukhary M., Mohamed A., 1984. Geo log i - cal Stud ies on the Saqqara Area, Egypt. N. Jb. Geol. Paläont., Abh., 168, 125 144. Zalmout I.S., Gingerich P.D., 2012. Late Eocene sea cows (Mammalia, Sirenia) from Wadi Al Hitan in the West ern Desert of Fayum, Egypt. University of Michigan Papers on Paleontol - ogy, 37: 1 158.