Sérapéum is the name given by the Greeks to the temples of Sérapis and the burials of the crowned bulls, incarnations of the god Apis.

Memphis

See also: Sérapéum de Saqqarah

To Memphis, fatherland of the god Ptah and sound Hypostasis Apis, several buildings were devoted to the god bull who lived and would die in this city. Sérapis as a heir to the worship of Apis thus received a ptolémaïque worship at the time there, but the building which was devoted to him remains to be been localized in the ruins of the capital antique. For the moment only the tables of embalming of the bull, discovered in the south-western sector of the enclosure of the temple of Ptah, represent a serious index for this research. Hérodote which visited the site left us a testimony on its general aspect, indicating to us that it was located towards the south of the site and that it is Psammétique {{Ier}} of which made build for Apis opposite the gantry, the court in which one nourishes it once it appeared; it is surrounded by a colonnade and all decorated of figures; the columns are replaced there by high colossi of twelve coudées.

Ptolémaïque Sérapéum of time was in the center of other constructions, Anubéion, Astartéion and Asclépiéion, as well as dependences for the priests. Another building which one names the Egyptian Sérapéum is located at Saqqarah in the west of the Mastaba of Ti. He was discovered by Auguste Mariette the 1851 with Saqqarah; it is actually about the necropolis devoted to the god Apis in whom he was buried. It was known of Strabon which identifies it and describes it: Sérapéum is built in a place so invaded by sand, that it was formed there by the wind of true dunes and that, when we visited it, sphinges were already buried, the ones to the head, others to half-length only… .

In fact the building that Strabon visited was famous in all the country and its reputation overflowed the borders. As much of Egyptian sanctuaries, this temple many times was increased and embellished by the sovereign diffénrents which followed one another, especially from the Low time.
The origin of this necropolis goes back to and its first masterly extension to the reign of Ramsès {{II}}.
Indeed, one owes the first catacombs with Khâemouaset, wire of Ramsès {{II}}, which although chosen by his/her father as crown prince, will never become Pharaon but will devote forty years of its life to the bulls Apis. At twenty years, it was named priest at the sides of the Grand priest of Ptah to Memphis Houy, responsible for the care of the crowned bulls. Little time after, in year 16 of the reign of Ramsès {{II}}, died Apis which was buried with Saqqarah in one of the vaults devoted to Osiris-Apis, intended to shelter the momifiées skins of the bulls crowned, and built in the sector since at least the reign of Amenhotep {{III}}.

Ramsès and Khâemouaset are represented on the walls of the vault in worship in front of the animal. New a Apis was then chosen, which died fourteen years later and was buried at the sides of the precedent. Steles, ordered by the notable ones, point out these two events. They were placed at the origin outside the vault. Individual vaults arranged with the top it vault made it possible to celebrate the funerary worship.

Khâemouaset very quickly decided to modify and codify the principle of the burial of the Apis. It then made dig the small gallery of Sérapéum, which gave access to several rooms, so that each bull had its own vault. It put an end to the individual vaults and created a temple intended for the celebration of the funerary worship of all the died Apis, i.e. Osiris-Apis the future Sérapis of the Greeks. During the forty last years with the service of the god Ptah, Khâemouaset attended the burial of several bulls.

Alexandria

To Alexandria, the column dédicatoire of Dioclétien, more known under the name of column of Pumped, belonged to Sérapéum built by Ptolémée {{III}}; it existed there an appendix of famous the library. It was destroyed by Theophilus, the bishop of Alexandria, following the decree of Théodose going back to 391, prohibiting all the religions not-Christian women and in particular the pagan worships of the animals whose Egypt was the last witness.

Canope

With Canope, a famous sanctuary dedicated to Isis and Sérapis were one of the places of worship of most famous during the times ptolémaïque and Roman. Its celebrations and rites were so popular that the temples and sanctuaries with the Egyptian gods who will spread themselves through all the empire will symbolically take again generally the essential components of the architecture of their model.

For the gréco-Roman examples, it was thus about a téménos containing the principal temple dedicated to the divinities and who as a whole monumental was preceded by one propylée or of a court with peristyle. One could also find vaults additional dedicated to other Egyptian gods: Anubis or Hermanubis, Hermes Trismégiste or Thot - Hermes, Harpocrate, etc The unit was often in bond with a source or a supposed well being a miraculous resurgence of the the Nile - it is the case for example for the sanctuaries with the Egyptian gods of Délos - or a basin like substitute of the the Nile, water remaining an central element in the litturgie of these worships which one then described as isiaques.

The Emperor Hadrian (117-138) made some build one in his Villa Adriana of Tivoli which reaches proportions unequalled in its design. An immense basin forming a channel of 119 meters out of 18 surrounded by gantries and statues, led to the sanctuary of Sérapis. Sheltered by a monumental cupola it was composed of an almost theatrical part and more an underground close friend dedicated to the aspect chtonien of the divinity. At the time of the inauguration of the temple Hadrian will strike currency with his effigy in company of the god Sérapis under a platform with two columns supporting a round pediment. The emperor becomes " synnaos" , i.e. companion of naos of the god profiting with equality from the worship celebrated in Sérapéïon of Canope.