Saqqara North

Some 275yd/250m north of the Tomb of Ptahhotep is the site of Mariette's House, built by the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette when excavating the Serapeum as a site office and museum. The new building begun in the 1960s remains unfinished and ruined, a conspicuous landmark.

Immediately west of Tomb of lru-kaptah Khenu is the Mastaba of Akhet-hotep, in which many wooden statues were found. Little is left of the tomb itself or of a third tomb which adjoins it.

Outside the enclosure wall, to the south, are several mastabas of the Third-Sixth Dynasties. Particularly notable is one which was originally constructed for an official named Ikh but was later used for the burial of Princess Sesh-seshet or Idut. It is decorated with reliefs with well preserved coloring, including one of a genet and an ichneumon robbing birds' nests in a papyrus swamp, and has a number of underground store rooms, originally containing baskets of fruit and grain, which were sealed with the seals of Kings Khasekhemwy and Djoser.

On either side of the causeway leading up to the Pyramid of Unas are mastabas and rock tombs of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, discovered in 1844 and subsequently excavated.

To the east of the Pyramid of Teti and the street of tombs are the unexcavated remains of a pyramid, usually ascribed to a King Merikare of the Heracleopolitan period (Ninth and 10th Dynasties).

Northeast of the Step Pyramid of Djoser is the mound of rubble which represents the Pyramid of Userkaf, founder of the Fifth Dynasty. It was relatively small, with an original base measurement of some 245ft/75m, and lay within a correspondingly small precinct. The mortuary temple was on the south side; and to the southwest of this are the remains of a subsidiary pyramid. In the area south of Userkaf's Pyramid and east of Djoser's are mastabas of the Old Kingdom.

Some 330yd/300m east of the Pyramid of Unas is the small Tomb of Nefer-her-ptah Overseer of the Palace, Royal Wigmaker and confidant of an unidentified King. It consists only of an entrance corridor and a single chamber, but contains preliminary drawings of high artistic quality for reliefs which were never executed. They depict scenes from everyday life, farming and hunting.