MARIETTE, Auguste. - Lot 118

MARIETTE, Auguste. Le Sérapéum de Memphis. Paris, Gide, 1857. In folio. (8)-30 pp. 36 plates, leaves in red half-percaline corner folder with 3 period laces. First edition. A fundamental work of modern Egyptology. Dedicated to Prince Napoléon-Jérôme Bonaparte. This is the first scientific account of the excavations carried out by Auguste Mariette (1821-1881) in the Saqqarah necropolis, where in 1851 he uncovered the famous Serapium, a vast underground complex destined for the burial of the sacred Apis bulls. Mariette presents the results of his discoveries, including funerary galleries, monumental sarcophagi, hieroglyphic inscriptions and votive objects. Complete with 36 plates showing plans, sections, inscriptions and monuments discovered, divided into 7 chromolithographs with gold highlights after drawings by Théodule Devéria (1831-1871) and 29 plates reproducing photographs by Parisian photographers Charles Marville (1813-1879) and Paul Berthier (1822-1912). [Egypt].