The Starving of Saqqara in Montreal. The name Saqqara refers to the burial ground of Memphis, Egypt. How the name came to be attached to the artifact is not known. The statue has been at Concordia University since 1999. Experts from the University of Cambridge, the British Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Israel Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum have all been consulted, without success. The script has been determined to not be Aramaic, Demotic, Egyptian, Hebrew, or Syriac. One expert, Clarence Epstein, suggests that it represents a pair of conquered captives. The sculpture was displayed to the public from March 16 to 18,
Apis (deity) and fixed in a standing position on a foundation made of wooden planks. By the New Kingdom period, the remains of the sacred bulls were interred at the cemetery of Saqqara. The earliest known burial in Saqqara was performed in the reign of Amenhotep III by his son Thutmose; afterward, seven more bulls were buried nearby. Ramesses II initiated Apis burials in what now is known as the Serapeum, an underground complex of burial chambers at Saqqara for the sacred bulls, a site used throughout the rest of Ancient Egyptian history into the reign of Cleopatra. Khaemweset, the priestly son