As far as my career goes, it would probably be good if I left to get experience at another site,” Mahmoud Shaban says with a shrug. Shaban has been working at Saqqara as an inspector for the last six years and has been involved in excavations here since he was studying Egyptology at Cairo University. But he has no plans to leave.

“I really think Saqqara is the most important site,” he claims. “This is where it all started, this is the real beginning of Egyptian civilization and it’s still an incredibly rich site.” Saqqara has yet to reveal all of its treasures, and one of those left hidden has an almost Holy Grail type of allure for archaeologists. “Somewhere out here, Imhotep’s tomb is still hiding,” Shaban says in a tone that could only be described as reverent.

Imhotep is variously referred to as the world’s first physician, a sage, a priest, an astrologer and too many more titles to mention, but the most lasting effect he had on Egypt, and by some accounts on the world, was as chief architect. The pyramid he built at Saqqara as a burial chamber for the Pharaoh Djoser was not only Egypt’s first pyramid; it was the world’s first stone building.

Details of Imhotep’s life have become blurred as his legend grew until he was eventually worshipped as a god. Most scholars believed that he was, in fact, a mythological figure until proof of his actual existence was found in the 19th century. As well as inventing the structure that has become synonymous with Egypt and giving it the means to last through the ages, Imhotep is believed to have written several medical texts and founded the first schools of medicine 2,200 years before Hippocrates, the Father of Western Medicine, was even born.

As early as a few short centuries after his death, statues and images of Imhotep appeared alongside of those of the gods in tombs throughout Egypt. He was worshipped until the time of the early Christians, some of whom incorporated pagan beliefs into their religion.

Now 4,700 years after his death, Imhotep’s legacy is in danger.

“The Step Pyramid is collapsing,” Zahi Hawass, Head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) says. “The substructure of the Pyramid of Djoser (another name for the Step Pyramid) is a series of tunnels about seven kilometers long. These have been collapsing for the last 50 years and unfortunately no one has done anything about it until now.”

Tour buses are the main culprits, according to SCA studies. In peak season large groups of buses sit just outside the site idling their engines and creating vibrations that reach all the way to the Step Pyramid. In October, Hawass announced that doing so now constitutes a crime.

“There is a new criminal charge called damaging antiquities. It will fall under the same law as stealing them, and we are going to have much harsher penalties,” he states. Because it is still new, no one is sure what kinds of difficulties will be encountered with pressing charges. For emphasis he adds, “If you run your motor on the site, you will go to jail.”

Even while acknowledging potential problems, Hawass is pleased with the new law. “I’m sure that the prospect of jail, for however long it is, will make people think twice about these things.”

The new measures are a step in the right direction, but they may not be enough. “We are now studying how to further limit the vehicles from Saqqara,” Hawass says. He worries, however, that even the vibration from the ignition may be too much. “Without all of these measures I really believe that the Step Pyramid wouldn’t have lasted another year. We were and still are somewhat in danger of losing the world’s oldest stone building.”

Hunched over walking through the tunnel leading from the south side of the pyramid, I am struck by two thoughts. First, the ancient Egyptians couldn’t have been very tall. Second, what damage are they talking about? Then this section of the substructure comes to an abrupt halt and plunges 28 meters down under the very center of the pyramid. In the large tomb opening the damage is visible everywhere. Huge cracks run up the sides of the shaft and the ceiling is slowly collapsing, leaving a huge pile of rubble on the bottom.

With technical assistance from UNESCO, projects are underway to reconstruct the tunnels. “The damage to the Step Pyramid is very bad, but it’s not irreversible,” Hawass insists. “The project we have going on right now I believe will protect it completely. Our first goal is to stop any more damage. Then we need to restore it and then we get back to conservation,” he says. “We have to conserve our gains.”

Shifting the SCA’s focus towards conservation may well be Hawass’ legacy when he finishes his tenure as head of the department.

“Right now it is very hard to get foreign groups interested in the conservation efforts,” he explains. “Almost all of the foreign interest is in excavation.”

Big donors and group sponsors want their names attached to important discoveries, not site museums and improved storage magazines. “Even UNESCO has avoided conservation projects since the Nubian campaign,” Hawass says. “We can get expertise from them but it’s virtually impossible to get people to fund conservation. Even much of the expertise they provide is at our expense.”

The lack of interest in conservation is what has led to the near collapse of the Step Pyramid, among other problems. The old storage magazine systems at various sites were so bad that artifacts either deteriorated or simply disappeared.

Shaking his head Hawass simply says, “The old magazines were a mess. Some of them were nearly impossible to open and it was such a mess inside that even if you got it open, you could not tell what was inside.”

The confusion was such that artifacts which were supposedly in a storage magazine in Saqqara started turning up in museums in America. “We are returning some pieces from Christie Hall in New York,” Hawass tells us. “When I went out to the magazine where these pieces belonged to investigate, I found more than 30 pieces that had been stolen and no one reported it.”

To safeguard against this happening again, everything in the new magazines has been electronically recorded and photographed, and workstations have been set up in controlled environments for further study so there’s no longer any reason to remove an artifact from a magazine.

Hawass acknowledges that members of the SCA staff are responsible for some of the thefts, but doesn’t see the problem as widespread. In October, undercover policemen posing as buyers broke an antiquities smuggling ring; one of the accused was a former inspector at SCA. “I personally knew this young man,” Hawass says. “He worked for me when I was the director of Giza and Saqqara and I never thought he would do such a thing. But it’s not as shocking as people think. In any job you will find good people and bad people. If in my department we have three or four people who are really criminals,” he pauses and shrugs, “That’s not bad; I have 30,000 people in my department.”

But Hawass is not one to rest on his laurels. “We [the SCA] have several new measures to help protect the monuments,” Hawass says. “We recently issued 8,000 new contracts for guards. They will have to go through a one-year course in both archaeology and security techniques. We are also substantially raising their salaries.”

This, he feels, is perhaps the most important tactic. “Before, all of the guards were making LE 100 per month. It’s not very difficult or expensive to convince a man who makes LE 100 to look the other way for a little while.”

As far as Hawass is concerned, it all comes down to the same issue: conservation. The monuments need to be preserved. Artifacts need to be cataloged, stored properly and protected, and a guard force capable of doing the job needs to be in place.

“When I took over, I stopped 35 expeditions,” he says. “At first people were not happy, but I think they are now, because there are clear rules.” As part of these rules, if an archaeological site is not in danger from urban encroachment or environmental damage, it is highly unlikely to receive permission to dig.  et