Egypt - 6. Chapter 6

It didn’t take long for them to open the door. Bringing in some lanterns, they stood in amazement at what they saw. The room was designed based on the religion of the time. Statues of the gods were surrounding the walls.

“That must be Djoser’s resting place, but where is his sarcophagus?”

“In the days of Djoser, there was a belief his final resting place was underground. If that is true, the king will be under the center of the floor.”

Now they started to photograph every inch of the area. The walls were beautiful, they showed paintings of the afterlife as well as paintings of Djoser and his family. Dr. Al Khatib sent some of his men to Luxor to bring additional personnel. He anticipated it would take several days for his people to catalogue everything in this room.

Now there was no question, they were going to open all the other doors.

That evening a schedule was devised on opening the other doors. This led to a game of guessing who or what was in each of these rooms. Dr. Al Khatib sent some men to Cairo to bring back some of his colleagues. He said that if the other rooms were as prominent as Djoser’s room, he will need help or he would be here for close to a year cataloging everything himself.

A caravan of trucks arrived one week later. The additional men, with special packing would pack up the items in Djoser’s resting place and the additional archeologists began to create a catalog of the articles in Djoser’s crypt. The team was excited as there were several additional doors to be opened .

David and Dr. Al Khatib organized a team for each room. Each team had an archeologist from the Cairo Department of Antiquity and a member of David’s team. They agreed that photographs would be taken and Dr, Al Khatib agreed that David could have a copy of the photographs if he gave a set to the Department as well.

David and Al Khatib opened the door to the right of Djoser’s crypt. There they found a crypt decorated similar to Djoser’s.

“This must be the crypt of his queen, Hetephernebti.”

Photos were taken of the walls as well as the numerous statues and containers.

“We will open these canopic jars and other containers in Cairo where we have a special room for doing that. If we open them here, the air could destroy the contents.”

For the next several days, photos were taken as the clay containers were carefully crated and removed.

“Now I wonder what is in the other rooms. Did Djoser have any family?”

“Yes, and they would be interred here as well.”

The last door to be opened was the crypt of Imhotep, the architect that designed the ‘Step’ pyramid.