Saqqara served as capital of Egypt, Saqqara remained in use as a burial ground for nobles. Moreover, the area became an important destination for pilgrims to a number of cult centres. Activities sprang up around the Serapeum, and extensive underground galleries were cut into the rock as burial sites for large numbers of mummified ibises, baboons, cats, dogs, and falcons. Saqqara and the surrounding areas of Abusir and Dahshur suffered damage by looters during the 2011 Egyptian protests. Store rooms were broken into, but the monuments were mostly unharmed. During routine excavations in 2011 at the dog catacomb in Saqqara necropolis,
Burial society ceremonies. Burial society is a precursor to general insurance which is a recent innovation. Burial societies were first known to exist in ancient Rome and not before. In ancient Rome, various associations of a fraternal nature, as well as religious groups, political clubs, and trade guilds, functioned as burial societies. Terms for these include "hetaeria", "collegium", and "sodalitas". The by-laws of one burial society are preserved by an inscription dating to A.D. 136. Discovered at Lanuvium, the "lex collegia salutaris Dianae et Antinoi" ("By-laws of the Society of Diana and Antinous") details the cost of joining the society, monthly fees,