Bridging the cultures and religious beliefs between ancient Egypt & Greece, Serapis was a fusion of Greek and Egyptian deities, created by the Ptolemaic rulers to unify their subjects. He was a Greco-Egyptian deity of the Sun first encountered at Memphis, where his cult was celebrated in association with that of the sacred Egyptian bull Apis.

Serapis was thus originally a god of the underworld but was reintroduced as a new deity with many Hellenic aspects by Ptolemy I Soter (reigned 305–284 BCE), who centered the worship of the deity at Alexandria.

In attempting to create a musical fusion of ancient Greek & ancient Egyptian elements in this piece, I use the an ancient minor pentatonic scale, which as well as being one of the scales actually possible to verify its use in ancient Egypt (thanks to the discovery of intact ancient Egyptian flutes, from which playable replicas have been made.

To further bring this ancient Egyptian/ancient Greek musical fusion to life, the piece is actually performed on my replica of the miraculously surviving 'Leiden Lyre' - an ancient Egyptian lyre discovered in Thebes in around 1830, dating to circa 1,500 BCE and which is preserved in Leiden.