The stepped building pictured above, located at Sakkara (Saqqara), was built as the tomb of the ancient king Djoser over 4,500 years ago. The building was designed by the revered Imhotep, who, in addition to being a high-ranking statesman, was a brilliant engineer and architect. Imhotep began with a simple mastaba, a common funeral monument shaped like a rectangular platform. Then he added five successively smaller mastabas one atop the other. The result was whole new type of building and a prototype of the far more famous monuments about 15 miles away – the Giza Pyramids. This site was a necropolis for the ancient capital of Memphis for about 500 years in the 3rd millennium BCE. Even after the center of power shifted to the south, Sakkara remained an important burial site for thousands of years.
Can you name that country?
See below for answers.
This beautiful mosaic is from the floor of the so-called Villa of Dionysus among the ruins of Tzipori (aka Sepphoris). Tizpori was a wealthy, cosmopolitan center of trade in the northern region of our mystery country. The local Roman client king Herod Antipas invested heavily in the city in the early decades of the Common Era. The population of prosperous, Hellenized Jews refused to participate in revolts against Roman occupation, thereby avoiding the destruction suffered by many other Jewish cities and towns. The city attracted Jewish scholars from devastated towns and became a center of Jewish study. Its most notable resident was the Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, the editor of the Mishna, a collection of commentaries on the Torah and the 2nd most important book in Judaism after the Torah. Remains at the site include a Roman theater, early Christian churches, a Crusader fort and a huge collection of 3rd-6th-century mosaics.
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