Near the foot of the pyramid tomb of King Teti, who died about 2323 B.C., archaeologists explore the graves of the ruler’s relatives and high officials. This is one part of the cemetery now known as Saqqara, where for almost the entire 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian civilization the rich and powerful prepared their final resting places. Trusting in an afterlife, they erected enduring funerary complexes—tomb chambers cut into the bedrock, capped with chapels of mud brick or stone—and equipped them with magical texts and offerings for eternity.