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,
Serapeum of Saqqara clear rocks blocking the entrance to the catacomb, he excavated most of the complex. Unfortunately, his notes of the excavation were lost, which has complicated the use of these burials in establishing an Egyptian chronology. Mariette found one undisturbed burial, which is now at the Agricultural Museum in Cairo. The other 24 sarcophagi of the bulls, had been robbed. A controversial aspect of the Saqqara find is that for the period between the reign of Ramesses XI and the twenty-third year of the reign of Osorkon II – about 250 years – only nine burials have been discovered, including three