The Osirieon

The Osirieon

Through the rear door of the temple is the Osirieon, the only visible tomb at this site, which was built before the main temple. Much of the damage to the Osirieonhas been from flooding, as it was built at water level, yet it is not much diminished. Red Aswan granite pillars, each weighing about a hundred tons apiece, support equally massive archways. This temple was built as a symbol of Seti's closeness to Osiris and contains a sarcophagus, though Seti was not buried here. Seti's actual tomb is in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. This was a fairly common practice among many of the pharaohs, having "public" tombs in one location, but actually being buried in another. The Osirieon is currently inaccessible because of the rising sand and the flooding that has occurred. Excavation has been done on the south side passage, which revealed texts from The Book of the Gates and The Book of What is in the Duat. This section was begun by Seti and finished by his grandson, Merneptah. It is a complete tomb structure, all ready to receive the mummy of a king, yet it does not appear ever to have been used so. Abydos does have a reputation for these "false tombs" or cenotaphs. Some theorists state that Abydos does not even have a single actual tomb in it, but that all the dead who have tombs at Abydos are actually buried elsewhere. The cemeteries of northern Saqqara certainly have a great number of royal mastabas, of which many have been linked to the Archaic rulers. It is very possible that actual burials of kings and high-ranking officials were carried out at Saqqara, which is near Memphis, the new court city. Thus the monuments at Abydos are precisely that : monuments. It is fairly simple to see why this might be so. The rulers would no doubt have a desire to be buried near the place they ruled, butAbydos was also a powerful site because of its religious ties, as well as being deep in the ancient homelands. Thus, the rulers arranged to have themselves "buried" in both places. The body at Saqqara or another site, and a cenotaph built at Abydos. Of course, the reverse could be true, with Abydos as the true burial site and all the tombs at Saqqara are cenotaphs. Or perhaps the explanation involves a little bit of both, with some rulers desiring to be buried near Memphis, and others at Abydos, but each ruler building two tombs, one in each location. It would be rather unusual for the rulers to remain as visible as possible in their new capital during life, and then at death, simply passing from view. Thus much of the current consensus is that Saqqara is the actual burial site and that Abydos is the site of the royal monuments. The tombs at Saqqara as a whole are larger and more luxurious than those at Abydos (with the exception of the valley "temples" of Abydos which are immense and have no known Saqqaran counterparts), suggesting that Saqqara is the true burial site.