SERAPIS, or Sarapis, in the Leyden papyrus ’Οσαράππ, i.e., Osiris-Apis, apparently meaning the dead Apis worshipped as Osiris (see Apis), and so as lord of the underworld, was the name under which the Egyptian priests consulted by Ptolemy Soter incorporated with the old religion the Greek worship of Hades. The statue with the attributes of Hades which they professed to identify as Serapis (a name which had till then played no prominent part in Egyptian religion) was brought by the king from Sinope to Alexandria in consequence, it was given out, of a revelation granted to him in a dream (Plut., Is. et Os., 28). The real object of Ptolemy was to provide a mixed Greek and Egyptian religion for his mixed subjects, especially in Alexandria; the true Egyptians disliked the innovation, and no Serapeum or Serapis temple was admitted within the walls of Egyptian cities (Macrob., i. 7, 14). Thus the great Serapeum at Memphis lay outside the town (Strabo, xvii. 1, 32), where its ruins were laid bare by Mariette in 1850. From papyri found on the spot it is known that a sort of monastery was connected with this and other Serapea. The so-called Egyptian Serapeum or series of Apis graves excavated in the rock near the Greek Serapeum is distinct and belongs to the old religion, though the old Osiris worship was gradually transferred to Serapis. The cult of Serapis also spread largely in the Graeco-Roman world. Egyptian monasticism seems to have borrowed something from the monks of Serapis, and the Egyptian Christians were accused of worshipping Serapis as well as Christ (Vita Saturnini, 8), perhaps because they identified the god who is represented bearing a corn-measure on his head with the Biblical Joseph; see Firmicus Maternus, c. 13, and Suidas, s.v. Σάρατης.