Herodotos must have returned to Memphis after his visit to the pyramids, before setting forth on his voyage to the south. Had he gone straight from Gizeh to the Fayyûm along the edge of the desert, he would have passed the step-pyramid and the Serapeum at Saqqâra. It is difficult to believe that, had he done so, he would have told us nothing about the burial-place of the sacred bulls and the huge sarcophagi of granite in which they were entombed. The subterranean gallery begun by Psammetikhos was still open, and each Apis as he died was buried in it down to the end of the Ptolemaic period. At a later date, when the Persian empire had been overthrown, the Serapeum became a favourite place of pilgrimage for Greek visitors to Memphis. A Greek temple was built over the sepulchres of the bulls, Greek recluses took up their abode in its chambers, and Greek tourists inscribed their names on the sphinxes which lined the approach to the sanctuary.
Herodotos knew all about the living Apis, and the marks on the body of the bull which proved his divinity, as well as about the court in the temple of Ptah at Memphis, which Psammetikhos had built for the accommodation of the incarnate god. He was well acquainted also with the legend which made Kambyses slay the sacred bull and scourge its priests, and he tells us how the latter buried the body of their slaughtered deity in secret. But neither he nor his guides knew where the burial took place, or where the mummies of the bulls had been entombed from time immemorial. Had they done so we should have heard something about it. But, instead of this, we are told that the dead oxen were buried in the suburbs of the town where they had died, their horns being allowed to protrude above the ground in order to mark the spot. When the flesh was decayed the bones were conveyed in boats to a city in the island of Prosôpitis, called Atarbêkhis, and there deposited in their last resting-place.
It is evident, therefore, that the great cemetery of Memphis was not visited by travellers, and that the guides accordingly knew nothing about it. The Egyptians probably had the same feeling in regard to it as their Moslem descendants; the graves would be profaned if the “impure” foreigner walked over them. The “impure” foreigner, moreover, was usually satisfied with the three pyramids of Gizeh; he did not care to make another long expedition in the sun to the western desert in order to see there another pyramid. And, apart from the pyramid, there was little for him to visit. It is doubtful whether he would have been permitted to descend into the burying-place of the bulls, and the buildings above it were probably of no great size.