Ancient City of Memphis
Memphis is a unique archeological site and has things to do in Cairo. it was The Ancient City of Memphis and the capital of Egypt was well-known anciently as 'Inebu-hedge', the name that could not be pronounced by the Greeks so they called it after the name of one of the pyramids in the location of the city, the pyramid is called Mn Nefer which means pretty and stable. Mn-Nefer was corrupted to be Memphis then Arabs could not say it so they called the city Manf, and this name was finally pronounced by modern Egyptians as Mit-Rahina and that remains the current name where such a cosmopolitan city used to be. anciently it was the first name of Lower Egypt at that time, It was founded by the pharaoh Menes and was the Capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom, its ruins are found near ( Mit Rahina) a town around 20 km south of Giza. It is at a strategic position at the mouth of the Nile Delta that's why it remained an essential city throughout ancient Egyptian history. Its principal port contained a high density of warehouses that distributed food and merchandise throughout the ancient kingdom. Workshops, factories, and you have to remember that during its golden age, Memphis thrived as a regional center for commerce, religion, and trade.
Open-Air Museum of Memphis
In a limited archaeological area where the temple of Ptah was located, Ptah is considered the chief divinity of Memphis, he was worshipped as the creator god, and his wife Sekhmet and their son is Nefertum.
Goddess Sekhmet
There are some colossal statues exhibited in the modern museum of Mit Rahina, the largest is the one depicting Ramses II found demolished and mutilated, originally more than 13 m high.
Memphis became the capital of Ancient Egypt for 1000 years over eight consecutive dynasties and an important religious center during the Old Kingdom. It reached its peak of prestige under the 6th dynasty as a center for the worship of Ptah, the god of creation and artworks. The Temple of Ptah which is guarded by the alabaster sphinx serves as a memorial of the city's former power and prestige. The Memphis triad who is consisting of the god Ptah, his wife Sekhmet, and their son Nefertem, who made the main focus of worship in the city.
Memphis declined during the 18th dynasty with the rise of Thebes and it was restored during the rest of the New Kingdom and also under the Persians before being ignored again following the foundation of Alexandria. During the Roman Empire, Alexandria continued as the most important Egyptian city. The second city of Egypt till the establishment of Fustat (or Fostat) in 641 CE remained Memphis. Lately, it was largely deserted and became a source of stone for the surrounding settlements. Now, still, it's still got an impressive set of ruins that belong to the twelfth century but soon became a little more than an expanse of low ruins and scattered stone.
Memphis is believed to be under the protection of the god Ptah, the patron of artists. Its magnificent temple, Hut-ka-Ptah was one of the leading structures in the city at that time and there is no doubt that the ruins of the former capital today offer fragmented proof of its past. They have been protected, along with the pyramid complex at Giza, as a World Heritage Site since 1979. The site is open to the public as an open-air museum.
Visiting Memphis
Despite the destruction of the ancient capital to make way for new settlements, the open-air museum of Memphis still houses a number of notable statues and ancient ruins. An enormous colossus of Ramses II - displayed lying on its back, giving you unique access to viewing its intricate detail - and an immense alabaster sphinx monolith are two of the highlights of this museum. Visit the ruins of the Ancient City of Memphis, the first capital of Ancient Egypt, through one of our Egypt day tours.
A trip to Memphis would be incomplete without a visit to the nearby necropolis of Saqqara, which is home to beautiful temples and Egypt's first pyramid, a landmark achievement in the ancient civilization's development of architectural wonders. Hire a taxi from Cairo and haggle a good price to visit Memphis, Saqqara, and Dahshur, or book a guided English-language tour that includes transfers: Pyramids of Giza, Memphis, and Saqqara
If you're curious about the city of Giza and how it looked a long time ago, you can check out a website called Is It Safe To Travel To Egypt?. It has cool stuff like pictures and facts about Giza that will teach you all about its history.
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