Professor Zbyněk Žába laid, through his scholarly and organizational activities at the end of the 1950s and during the 1960s, the foundations for today’s success of the Czech Egyptology. In addition to extensive archaeological rescue operations in Lower Nubia, he intensely devoted his attention to the archaeological excavation of the mastaba of vizier Ptahshepses built in the central part of the Abusir necropolis (1960–1970). Despite the fact that Žába was a philologist, he tried to use up-to-date archaeological methods in his work. The unearthing of Ptahshepses’ tomb became Žába’s most important achievement in the field of Egyptian archaeology