The first royal burials at Saqqara, comprising underground galleries, date to the early Second Dynasty reigns of Hotepsekhemwy, Raneb and Nynetjer.

Djoser's funerary complex, built by the royal architect Imhotep, further comprises a large number of dummy buildings and a secondary mastaba (the so-called 'Southern Tomb').

French architect and Egyptologist Jean-Philippe Lauer spent the greater part of his life excavating and restoring Djoser's funerary complex.

The Serapeum, containing one undisturbed interment of an Apis bull and the tomb of Khaemweset, were rediscovered by the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette in 1851.

Activities sprang up around the Serapeum, and extensive underground galleries were cut into the rock as burial sites for large numbers of mummified ibises, baboons, cats, dogs, and falcons.

[12] In July 2018, German-Egyptian researchers’ team head by Ramadan Badry Hussein of the University of Tübingen reported the discovery of an extremely rare gilded burial mask that probably dates from the Saite-Persian period in a partly damaged wooden coffin.

[14][15] In September 2018, several dozen cache of mummies dating 2,000 years back were found by a team of Polish archaeologists led by Kamil Kuraszkiewicz from the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the University of Warsaw.

[22] Most of the mummies we discovered last season were very modest, they were only subjected to basic embalming treatments, wrapped in bandages and placed directly in pits dug in the sandThe research of the Polish-Egyptian expedition also focuses on the interpretation of the so-called Dry Moat, a vast trench hewn around the Djoser Pyramid.

The most recent discoveries confirm the hypothesis that the Dry Moat was a model of the pharaoh's journey to the netherworld, a road the deceased ruler had to follow to attain eternal life.

[35] On 13 April 2019, an expedition led by a member of the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Mohamed Megahed, discovered a 4,000-year-old tomb near Egypt's Saqqara Necropolis.

[40] On April 28, 2020, archeologists announced they had found a 30-foot-deep (9 meter) burial shaft containing five limestone sarcophagi, four wooden coffins with human mummies, and an array of other artifacts.

[43] On 3 October 2020, Khalid el-Anany, Egypt's tourism and antiquities minister announced the discovery of at least 59 sealed sarcophagi with mummies more than 2,600 years old.

[49] In November 2020, archaeologists unearthed more than 100 delicately painted wooden coffins dating to the 26th Dynasty and 40 statues of the local goddess Ptah Soker.

[50] “This discovery is very important because it proves that Saqqara was the main burial of the 26th Dynasty,” said Zahi Hawass, an Egyptologist and Egypt's former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs.

[51][52] In January 2021, the tourism and antiquities ministry announced the discovery of more than 50 wooden sarcophagi in 52 burial shafts which date back to the New Kingdom period,[53][54] each around 30 to 40 feet deep,[53][54] and a 13 ft-long papyrus that contains texts from Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead.

[53] Also found in the shafts were wooden funerary masks, board games, a shrine dedicated to god of the dead Anubis, bird-shaped artifacts and a bronze axe.

[53] A limestone stelae dated to the reign of Ramesses II was found in one of the shafts, depicting the overseer of the king's military chariot Kha-Ptah and his wife Mwt-em-wia worshipping Osiris and sitting with six of their children.

[60] In November 2021, archeologists from Cairo University discovered several tombs, including that of Batah-M-Woya, chief treasurer during the reign of Ramesses II,[61] and of a military leader named Hor Mohib.

[62][63] On 30 May 2022, 250 sarcophagi and 150 statuettes were displayed at Saqqara, dated back to the Late Period more than 2,500 years ago, in addition to a 9-meter-long papyrus scroll which could be a depiction of a chapter of the Book of the Dead.

According to University of Warsaw’s Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, the elaborately decorated tomb belonged to a man named Mehtjetju who served as a priest and an inspector of the royal property.

Kamil O. Kuraszkiewicz, expedition director stated that Mehtjetju most likely lived at about the same time, at some point during the reigns of the first three rulers of the Sixth Dynasty: Teti, Userkare and Pepy I.

Among the findings were remains of an adult with a colored mask and a small child, in addition to two terracotta statues depicting Isis and Harpocrates.