Memphis (Egypt)
Memphis is the Greek name of the ancient, capital city of the first names Low-Egypt ( Ineb Hedj : “White wall”).
The site is today close to the towns of MIT-Rahineh and Helwan, in the south of the Cairo.
The name Memphis is the Greek deformation of the Egyptian name of the pyramid of Pépi {{Ier}} (), Men-nefer .
The city was rested by the king Ménès towards -3000 and was the capital of Egypt during all the Ancient Empire.
Memphis is under the protection of the god Ptah, the owner of the craftsmen, of which the temple was the Hout-ka-Ptah , the “castle of the ka of Ptah”. It is of this term which qualifies the house of the god, that would be derived in Greek the prototype word aegyptos from the name of the Latin country.
Capital of the Ancient Empire
One knows little of things of city of Ancient Empire, which was the capital of the state of the Pharaon-gods who reigned then on the country from and it is probably necessary to locate the city of the first dynasties more at north towards Abousir, not far from northern Saqqarah where are located the mastabas first dynasties.
According to Manéthon, the sources evoke the “White Wall” ( Ineb Hedj ) like initial establishment, founded by Ménès the first king having reformed the union of the Two Grounds. Qualified in certain texts of Forteresse of the White Wall , it is probable that the king settled there in order to better control this new union of the two rival kingdoms of times predynastic. The enclosure of the complex of Djéser of could then be the funerary echo of the primitive and royal enclosure sheltering all the elements necessary to the royalty. Temples and sanctuaries, course ceremonial, palate and barracks.
In the absence of convincing vestiges concerning this period of the high antiquity, the Egyptologists formulated the assumption according to which the city of alive would have followed the establishment of the royal funerary sanctuaries progressively of their constructions and of the change of site. Thus it is probable that under the site of Abousir between Saqqarah with the south and Gizeh more in north one of the districts of the capital represented and from Sahourê included/understood a royal palace.
A serious indication in the direction of this assumption is the etymology of the name of the city itself which is closely dependant in the name of the pyramid of Pépi {{Ier}} of which is with Saqqarah - southern, and thus seems to confirm it. The city would then have developed with the liking of the sites chosen for the construction of the royal tomb as for the example of Gizeh, necropolis royal of, located opposite Héliopolis, where the recent excavations revealed the harbor and civil establishments and a palate showing that the essential activity of the kingdom was well centered at that time on the construction of the royal tomb.
The solar episode started by, which put in fight the influence on the royal capacity of the divine clergies héliopolitains and memphites, and will develop with the following dynasty does not seem to have changed the role first of Memphis as a royal residence where the sovereigns received the double crown, divine demonstration of the unification of the Two Grounds. The tradition wanted indeed that the rite of the Séma Taouy , symbol of the meeting, is repeated in Memphis with each crowning, each jubilee or Fête Sed, which then renewed the capacity of the king at the end of one period which varied according to the times but remained traditionally celebration the thirty years of reigns.
It is during this period that the clergy of the temple of Ptah develops. The existence of the sanctuary is attested at this period thanks to the payments of foodstuffs and other goods necessary to ensure the funerary worship of the dignitaries and family members royal. The temple is quoted in the annals preserved on the Pierre of Palermo and, starting from the reign of Mykérinos, one knows the name of the large priests of Memphis who seem to function in binomial at least until the reign of Téti.
From the reign of Pépi {{Ier}} thus, the city sets and develops starting from its complex funerary, whereas already the displacement of the course of the river changes the configuration of the inland waterways and at the same time that of the city.
Heiress of a long architectural and artistic practice, unceasingly encouraged by the monuments of the successive reigns, Memphis will remain the dynastic capital and the landscape of the valley and its Western horizon changed little by little and definitively by the construction of vast necropoles with monumental pyramids, the temples which depended on it and all the administration wanted for their operation.
Each complex funerary and worshipper then received grounds and goods of which yearly of Abousir in particular made up by a whole corpus of administrative texts preserved on papyruses and found mainly in the funerary temples of Néferirkarê Kakaï and of its successor the young Pharaon Néferefrê of, preserved us the memory by delivering an invaluable testimony to us on the activity which reigned there. When it is known that the worship of these kings functioned until the end of the Ancient Empire, that is to say more than one century later, one is in right to think that the whole of the royal worships, since at least, was ensured with more or less of means according to their place and their importance. The unit was in any case to form true a mégapole ancient, with the cities which depended on it, the ports which served these téménos crowned and the divine worships which were returned there. In good place and connected by channels the already thousand-year-old city became thus the heart of a vast urban and religious extent.
At all events, the perimeter increases with time and the center moved certainly towards a sanctuary southernmost, current MIT-Rahineh, thus fixing the city of the Moyen Empire, then the metropolis of the Nouvel Empire.
Hout-Ka-Ptah: The Large Temple of Ptah and its monuments
The current and known development of the sanctuary of Ptah goes up essentially at that time.
This temple and its enclosure occupied most of the ancient city. Its vestiges were excavated and exposed in a museum in the open air near the large colossus of Ramsès {{II}} which marked the southern axis of the temple. It is as in this sector as a large sphinx monolith was discovered at the 19th century century. It is one of the greatest examples of this sculptor kind still present on his site of origin. Dating from one still hesitates to date it precisely. Anépigraphe, it would have been carved in the neighborhoods of the reign of Amenhotep {{II}} or Thoutmôsis {{IV}}. Many other statues, colossi, sphinges, steles and elements of architecture are stored in an enclosure or rather garden forming a small museum in the open air following the example other famous sites. However the majority of the product of the excavations were sent in the principal museums of the world. Thus the showpieces of the site are found exposed for the majority with the museum of Cairo while hundreds of ex-voto in the shape of ears, dedicated to “Ptah-which-listening-the-prayers” which were found in the enclosure of the temple, furnish the collections with certain museums.
It was about one of the forms of worship to the Ptah god with the Nouvel Empire. One offered to the temple small a Ex-voto or a sculpture representing one or more ears as well as a text dédicatoire. Certain examples represent us a wall in reduction undoubtedly restoring a particular place of the site. This wall would thus have had the aspect of a crenelated great wall built by regular bases of built blocks on which two large ears would have been carved.
In the west, the temple formed another axis with a hypostyle room imposing of Ramsès {{II}} preceded by large a pylon which opened on the necropoles. The pylon was preceded by colossi and statues of which certain parts still lie in a marshy ground which invaded the essence of the space occupied by the hypostyle room which presents an unusual plan compared to the hypostyle big rooms of Karnak or Ramesséum. Of basilical plan, like them, that of the temple of Ptah has a double line of central columns which supported the roof and confined them. The sides made up of 34 columns surround this central alley on three sides instead of the two lateral sides as in the thébains examples. Only the foundations and bases of columns remain and let imagine this imposing introduction to the sanctuary.
The tables of embalming of the bull crowned Apis were found in south-west inside the enclosure in a building which in its last state goes up with the reign of Nectanébo {{II}}. Dedicated to the rites of mommification of the god he was excavated at the end of the 20th century establishing that the building existed already with and that he was several times altered thereafter in particular under. This fact seems to confirm the writing of Hérodote which reports to us that this part of the temple was arranged under Psammétique {{Ier}} which made make for Héphaïstos (Ptah), in Memphis, the directed gantry on the side of the wind of the south and it made build for Apis opposite the gantry, the court in which one nourishes it once it appeared; it is surrounded by a colonnade and all decorated of figures; the columns are replaced there by high colossi of twelve coudées. One of the most popular worships of Memphis was devoted to the god Apis, hypostasis alive of Ptah incarnated in a crowned bull. With its death, it was momifié and buried in large pumps with all the honors due to a god in the necropolis of Saqqarah. Thus the western part of the enclosure would have been more particularly devoted to the funerary aspect of the god Ptah.
Beyond the wall which girdled the site, was found, always more in the west, a necropolis of and it is also in this zone currently under the modern city that the temples devoted by various Pharaons of the Nouvel Empire would be located.
Were several vaults released at the time of the excavations of Egypt Exploration Society in the years 1980, including one small temple of Ramsès {{II}} dedicated to “Ptah which is in the South of its Wall”, a vault of Sethi {{Ier}} dedicated to two hypostases of Mennefer the divinized city itself, a temple resting place (?) of Hathor, the whole in the south of the principal enclosure along a processional way which was to connect another téménos devoted to Hathor - Sekhmet.
Finally in the east a large gate preceded by colossi opened on the zone of the royal palaces. Among the royal effigies which were drawn up in front of the monumental door one counts that of Ramsès {{II}} which was a long time on the place Midan Ramsès vis-a-vis the station of the Cairo and which was transferred recently to Gizeh. The palate of Merenptah, thirteenth son and successor of Ramsès {{II}} as well as a small temple dedicated to Ptah which it built in the vicinity could be excavated at the 20th century making it possible to release a unit temple+palais preceded by a large gate the whole on a North-South axis. Merenptah would have increased space considerably by building a new wall which would have marked a new development of the site. Indeed it is attested that the course of the the Nile moved during the centuries towards the east leaving of new grounds occupy.
It is in this part of the city that it would be necessary to seek a worship considered with the goddess Astarté and around of which incorporated itself little by little the populations of raising which were established in Memphis its trade so much flourishing to was crossed caravan roads and main axes of circulation between the the Middle East and the Africa.
The large northern enclosure and the palate of Apriès
In the north of Hout-ka-Ptah another large enclosure was including/understanding according to the tradition a temple of Neith and a palate of Apriès of. This dynasty is indeed resulting from Know, quoted of Neith, whose ancestral worship took a new development and was attached even more to theology memphite. The Pharaons of this time had to fight against the threats coming from the East that the Assyrian had so violently represented. They then stuck to build in each large city of Low-Egypt of the powerful enclosures which contained buildings of the royal administration. Memphis as a central pivot in the geopolitics of Low-Egypt was thus particularly privileged like other large cities (Héliopolis for example).
The palate was built on a headland and thus dominated the site. It belonged to this series of structures built with the Low time in the crowned enclosures and containing, in addition to a royal palace, a citadel, barracks and arms manufacture. Flinders Petrie excavated the zone and found there many vestiges of a military activity while it released the main entrance of the palate whose stiles carried reliefs jubilaires to the glory of the reigning Pharaon. Today one can still see on the site a large raw brick monticule containing still, hidden, a room with column or a peristyle whose only capitals exceed debris as posed, given up in comparison with the visitor.
The enclosure in which this palatial unit was registered is the subject currently of excavations by a mission Russo-Belgian which seeks to reveal the monuments that it contained. Indeed its extent is as vast as the enclosure of Ptah and only for the moment the vestiges of the palate can indicate a precise destination to the second large enclosure of Memphis.
History and the role of the city
The history and the destiny of the city were also closely related to the royalty, crownings and jubilees ( Heb Sed , the Festival-Sed) were celebrated in the temple of Ptah. The first representations of this jubilee were found in the tomb of Djéser to Saqqarah.
Memphis occupied finally a strategic place at the entry of the delta, and of this fact also the name of “Balance of the Two Grounds carried”. It abounded in workshops and manufactures in particular of weapons which were preserved in large arsenals not far from the principal port of the city, the Peru Nefer , whose texts of the Nouvel Empire praise us the feverish activity.
A legendary history
The legend reported by Manéthon says that Ménès, first Pharaon to join together the Two Grounds, founded its capital by diverting the river by dams and Hérodote reports to us that, at the time of its visit, the Perses, then Masters of the country, took care particularly of the state of these dams so that the city is preserved floods of the annual flood.
The importance of the city to the Ancient Empire is equal to the importance of its necropolis which of Meïdoum to Gizeh, while passing by Daschour and Saqqarah, is true “negative” ancient city.
Indeed, the city developed, keeping an important role in the life of the country. After an episode undoubtedly héliopolitain under and S, the center of the capacity is established then in Memphis and with the First Intermediate Period the institutions are maintained there thus that the artistic production of the local workshops. Thus it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the funerary art from this period of that from, in particular with Saqqarah which remains the necropolis royal.
The eclipse of the Average Empire
With the Average Empire, the capital and the court of Pharaon were moved with Thèbes then in Fayoum leaving for a Memphis time in the shade. With the capacity reconstituted starting from Thèbes changes gives it a time since the necropolis royal of Antef and Montouhotep is transferred there. Their successors of restore the capital in the area of Memphis even if it is true that they more established it close to the Fayoum in particular with Licht according to in that the example of the monarchs of the Ancient Empire, who transferred their palate and the court near their necropolis royal.
The old city is not deserted for as much and remains the seat of an artistic activity and commercial important as the discoveries of artisanal districts and necropolis attest it installed in the west of the enclosure of the temple of Ptah of the Nouvel Empire. One in addition found vestiges of an architectural activity of this time in the middle of the temple of Ptah. Blocks registered in the name of Amenemhat {{II}} were indeed found used as foundations of one of the large colossi which preceded the pylon by Ramsès {{II}}. They present a fragment of annals of this sovereign of the Moyen Empire. Mining forwardings, raid or military countryside beyond the borders, construction of monuments or dedication of statues to the divinities, a whole panel of the officiaux acts of a court is brought back thus and gives invaluable information on the events of the time.
Amenemhat {{III}} built the northern gate of the enclosure according to the tradition brought back by Hérodote and Diodore of Sicily; for the moment no vestige of this access was found there.
This irrefutable fact prolongs, though still certain sovereigns are made bury again with Saqqarah, attesting that Memphis preserved its place in the middle of the royalty. The rise of parallel dynasties in the delta occurred then, demolishing the unit of the country, announcing the anarchy which will see the Hyksôs seizing the power gradually definitively to seize in -1650 it. This takeover was concretized with the head office and the catch of Memphis which had as well to mark the spirits as not only the city eclipsed but that its bag was recovered by the royal propaganda of which then undertook the reconquest one half-century later.
Princely and commercial metropolis of the New Empire
Thus opened by the victory of Ahmosis over the invaders Hyksôs, initially with Avaris then with the Close East reducing their inclinations of return to nothing. This prince thébain inaugurated one of the most powerful Egyptian dynasties which reconstituted the unit of the country, and having put at its profit the technological advancements introduced by the Hyksôs, undertook to conquer its neighbors in order to form true a glacis around the Double Country and to prevent for always the danger of a new invasion.
It seems that the first times of the dynasty were thus occupied developing this imperial policy and that Memphis remained in the shade of Thèbes and of its god liberator Amon who accepted the privilege thus to see to be established the court and the necropolis royal. In the delta, the palate and the fortress which first Thoutmôsis installed with Avaris, the old capital Hyksôs, attest that the military and royal activity had been based with nearest to the ground of the operations and this until Thoutmôsis {{III}}.
Under Amenhotep {{II}} then Thoutmôsis {{IV}} the capacity again seems to return somewhat to North even if Thèbes guard its role of religious and funerary metropolis of the dynasty.
With the long period of peace which followed prosperity gained the country again and the town of Memphis benefitted again from its strategic place and its role as a basic metropolis Egypt. Large a harem is founded in Miour, province southern of Memphis, not far from Meïdoum. The trade developed and the wearing of Peru Nefer which means “Good Voyage literally”, became the main door of the country for the roads of Byblos and of Raising.
It is of this time which the foundation with Memphis would go back to a temple devoted to Astarté, which Hérodote indicates to us at the time of his visit in the city as being a temple dedicated to the foreign Aphrodite, and one finds an activity architectural of Amenhotep {{III}} in the middle same of Hout-Ka-Ptah, inaugurating great work of the New Empire.
With the New Empire, Memphis thus became the true administrative and princely capital of the country. The school of Kep, which educated the royal princes was there certainly and of many palates could accommodate the royal family. Thoutmôsis {{IV}}, the father of large the Amenhotep {{III}}, the grandfather of Akhénaton, accepted the royalty of Harmakhis at the time of a dream which it had then residing young prince at Memphis, according to the legend that it reports on a stele placed between the legs of the sphinx of Gizeh which symbolized this large ensablé god, forgotten.
According to found inscriptions with Memphis, Akhénaton founded a temple of Aton in the city, and one found with Saqqarah the burial of one of the priests of the worship of the disc which undergoes transformations towards the end of the reign and of the somewhat tragic reversal of situation which marks the end of the dynasty.
Toutânkhamon gives up Amarna and installs the court with Memphis where it resides in company of its closest advisers who prepare then their tombs with Saqqarah even.
The tomb of Horemheb, then still general of the armies, is a witness of this period and recently of the excavations revealed fall it from the nurse of the young sovereign.
It is attested that, under Ramsès, the city took a new importance in the policy of the dynasty thanks to its proximity with the very new capital pi-Ramsès. Ramsès {{II}} devotes many monuments to Memphis and the flowering ash of colossi to its glory. Mérenptah, its successor, establishes a palate there, developing the south-eastern enclosure of the temple of Ptah, and for all the period which will follow, Memphis receives the royal privileges of the ramessides.
With and S one witnesses a prolongation of the activity initiated by Ramsès. Memphis does not seem to suffer from a decline at the time of this IIIe intermediate period which saw great changes in the geopolitics of the country. On the contrary any door to believe that the sovereigns of north endeavoured to develop the worships memphites in the area. A temple of Ptah would have been founded with Tanis with the sight of certain vestiges discovered on the site. Siamon Pharaon of the fact as for him of building or of restoring a temple dedicated to Amon in the south of Hout-Ka-Ptah and whose vestiges were raised by Petrie at the 19th century connecting a little more the two metropolises of the Low-Egypt.
In Memphis even, according to the inscriptions describing its architectural work, Sheshonq {{Ier}}, founder of which succeeds in reforming the union of the Two-Grounds, would have made build for the temple of Ptah a monument or in any case considerably increases the enclosure of the god. The name of this foundation was the Castle of Million Years of Sheshonq, liked of Amon . One hesitates to place this monument among the vestiges of Hout-ka-Ptah so much the site was reexploity and hidden under the debris. Moreover the urban expansion of MIT-Rahineh largely encroached on the zone concerned.
Its name would indicate a well-known funerary pertaining to worship function at the time of the Nouvel Empire and certain Egyptologists probably locate it at the west of the enclosure in front of the large pylon of Ramsès {{II}}. It would have constituted in before court and a pylon and according to this Sheshonq assumption would have made there arrange its tomb what would explain the absence of concrete traces of its burial with Tanis. In fact, one of the tables of embalming of the Apis god dates from the reign of Sheshonq {{Ier}} and one discovered the evidence that a funerary worship was returned to him in Memphis, worship which always went to the Low Time, which would confirm the existence of a place especially dedicated to the king.
A necropolis of the Grands Priests of Memphis dating precisely from was released in the west of the enclosure, whose in particular vault dedicated to Ptah by the prince Sheshonq, wire of the king Osorkon {{II}} and who occupied this function then. This vault is currently visible in the gardens of the museum of Cairo, behind a colossal triad of Ramsès {{II}} which also comes from Memphis.
Other vestiges discovered in this part of Memphis, announce monuments to the names of Chedsounéfertoum, of Osorkon. It is probable that the site of this necropolis, princely, was selected in relation to the foundation of the founder of the dynasty.
Memphis, strengthened capital of the Low Time
Lastly, strategic site because locking the access to the delta, Memphis kept a military and commercial role from time immemorial that only Alexandria could compete under the Roman Empire.
At the time of the third Period Intermediate then with the Low Time, Memphis was often the theater of the liberation struggles of the local dynastes against the occupant, whether it is koushite, Assyrian or Persian.
Thus during the triumphal countryside of Piânkhy, sovereign of Napata which founded, the city in which Tefnakht, one of the princes of the delta resulting from Libyan anarchy had found refuge, undergoes a new seat. The fact is reported on the stele of the Victories which the king set up with the temple of Amon Gebel Barkal and gives a description of the city which had been strengthened then. Following the catch of the city it made restore the temples and their worships. Its successors built vaults in the south-western angle of the principal enclosure and Taharka makes rebuild or restore the temple of Amon de Memphis.
Memphis will be again in the middle of the storm produced by the great Assyrian threat. It will be the base camp of resistance kouchite with Taharka which manages first once to push back the attack, then will fall to the hands from the invaders who will then be supported by part of the princes of the delta. Tanoutamon seems to take again the advantage then, and following the example Piânkhy its grandfather, reports a new seat of the city on “the stele of the dream”, which it will also set up him with Napata, for finally being submerged during a massive invasion which, in -664, definitively puts a term at the dreams of glory of the Pharaon S Nubians.
Recognizing towards their allies of Know, the Assyrian will then give the capacity to them and they will hasten to take again their independence with the first sign of weakness of the Assyrian empire. The enclosures of the temples then were rebuilt even strengthened, as the palate of Apriès of attests, and the seat of the capacity then seems to be turned over a time to Memphis.
Indeed, following the Persian invasions , the structures installation by the Pharaons saïtes are preserved, reinforced and Memphis is the seat of the news satrapie. A Persian garrison is installed with residence in the city, probably in the large northern enclosure, near the palate of Apriès. The excavations carried out by Pétrie revealed that this sector comprised arms manufacture and it discovered many vestiges there going up at that time. As they did it with the Assyrians, the Egyptians twice tried to shake the Persian yoke by means of alliances with their neighbor and partners, in particular Greek.
For all this period we lay out, through the steles devoted in the Sérapéum of Saqqarah to Apis by the reigning Pharaon, of a key element to include/understand the events.
From the Low Time the catacombs in which the skins of the crowned bull are buried are increased and take then a monumental aspect which confirms the rise of the worships of hypostases through all the country and more precisely with Memphis and its necropoles. Thus, a stele dedicated by Cambyse {{II}}, first Persian conqueror to subject the Double Country, seems to cancel the dires Hérodote which lends to him a criminal and disrespectful attitude against the crowned bull.
Alexandre Large the was made crown Pharaon in the temple of Ptah and the city kept an important statute, in particular religious, during all the period which followed the takeover by one of its generals, Ptolémée. That one even which diverted towards Egypt the funerary convoy of the large conqueror died in Babylon into -323 initially on the way for the Macedonia. Pretexting that the king himself officilement had officilement emitted the desire to be buried in Egypt, it will make tranporter then the body of Alexandre in the middle of the temple of Ptah and embaumer by the priests will do it. The invaluable relic will remain in Memphis until the construction of the Sôma with Alexandria even a few years later in which will be arranged the royal tomb.
It is in Memphis that starting from Ptolémée {{III}}, on order of the king and under the patronage of the Grand priest of Ptah, the delegates of the principal clergies of the kingdom met in Synode in the presence of the sovereign in order to establish the religious policy of the country for the years to come, fixing by decree the taxes and taxes, creating new foundations and paying homage to the sovereigns lagides who at the beginning and the end of their dynasty were particularly well accepted by the priests of the country. These decrees were registered on high steles placed in the principal sanctuaries of the country, and were engraved in three writings in order to be read and included/understood by all: the hiéroglyphe, the hieratic one and the Greek. The most famous example of these steles is the Pierre de Rosette which allowed the deciphering of the crowned writing of the former Egyptians the 19th century.
They are also Stèles, funerary this time, discovered on the site or with Saqqarah which thus transmitted us the genealogy of the high clergy of Memphis, true dynasty of large priests of Ptah whose ultimate descendants lived the Roman takeover.
End of Memphis
With the arrival of the Romans, following the example Thèbes, the city finally lost its place with the profit of Alexandria open on the empire and, little by little abandoned at the time copte then Arab the city became a career to build the new cities of Egypt, in particular the new capital, Cairo, built more in north opposite the pyramids of Gizeh.
At the 13th century, the Arab chronicler Abdallatif visiting the site, described it leaving us a testimony impressed on the size of the ruins of Memphis. Gaston Maspero quotes it in its work on the history of primitive Egypt: In spite of the immense one extended from this city and the high antiquity to which it goes up, its remainders still offer to the eyes of the spectators a meeting of wonders which confuses the intelligence, and which the most eloquent man would unnecessarily undertake to describe. The stones come from the demolition of the buildings fill with far the whole site: one sees in some places of the wall sides still upright, built these large stones from which I come to speak; elsewhere, there remain only the bases or many debris heaps. I saw the arc of a very high door of which the two side walls are formed each one of only one block; and the higher vault, which was also of a single block, had fallen ahead of of the door… The ruins of Memphis occupy one half-day of way in all directions. The scientists of Bonaparte found later only ruins scattered five centuries and it will be necessary to await work of Flinders Petrie at the 19th century to release the remainders of the old capital of Egypt and to return a little its last splendor to him.
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