Apis

Ancient Egyptian deity, a manifestation of the creator god Ptah of Memphis, in the form of a black bull with a small white triangle on the forehead, often bearing a Sun-disc between its horns.

The cult of Apis originated in the early 3rd millennium BC. Apis was a fertility god, associated also with Osiris and Sokaris, gods of the dead and the underworld. When successive Apis bulls died they were ceremoniously mummified and buried in huge stone sarcophagi in a subterranean gallery known as the Serapeum, in the Memphite necropolis, Saqqārah.

In the Saite period coffins often bear a representation of the Apis bull transporting the dead to the tomb.