In addition to his official cult, Unas was deified and became a local god of the Saqqara necropolis. Grimal attributes this directly to the grandeur of his funerary complex. Malek doubts the existence of a popular cult of Unas during the Old Kingdom but acknowledges it from the Middle Kingdom onwards. He attributes this Middle Kingdom revival to the geographic position of Unas' complex making it a natural gateway to the Saqqara necropolis. The popular cult of the deified Unas continued for nearly 2,000 years as shown by the numerous scarabs bearing Unas' name found in Saqqara and dated from the New Kingdom (c.1550–c.1077 BC) until the Late Period (664–332 BC). The epicenter of this cult was not the pyramid of Unas nor the associated mortuary temple but rather the statues of the king in the valley temple.