Memphis | Ancient City of Egypt & Its History | Britannica (original) (raw)

Memphis, city and capital of ancient Egypt and an important centre during much of Egyptian history. Memphis is located south of the Nile River delta, on the west bank of the river, and about 15 miles (24 km) south of modern Cairo. Closely associated with the ancient city’s site are the cemeteries, or necropolises, of Memphis, where the famous pyramids of Egypt are located. From north to south the main pyramid fields are: Abū Ruwaysh, Giza, Zāwiyat al-ʿAryān, Abū Ṣīr, Ṣaqqārah, and Dahshūr. The Memphis archaeological zone was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.

Foundation and Early Dynastic Period

According to a commonly accepted tradition, Memphis was founded about 2925 bce by Menes, who supposedly united the two prehistoric kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt. The original name of the city was the White Walls, and the term may have referred originally to the king’s palace, which would have been built of whitewashed brick. The modern name of Memphis is a Greek version of the Egyptian Men-nefer, the name of the nearby pyramid of the 6th-dynasty (c. 2325–c. 2150 bce) king Pepi I. Another geographic term for Memphis, Hut-ka-Ptah (“mansion of the ka of Ptah”), rendered Aigyptos in Greek, was later applied to the country as a whole.

Ptah, the local god of Memphis, was a patron of craftsmen and artisans and, in some contexts, a creator god as well. The great temple of Ptah was one of the city’s most prominent structures. According to an Egyptian document known as the “Memphite Theology,” Ptah created humans through the power of his heart and speech; the concept, having been shaped in the heart of the creator, was brought into existence through the divine utterance itself. In its freedom from the conventional physical analogies of the creative act and in its degree of abstraction, this text is virtually unique in Egypt, and it testifies to the philosophical sophistication of the priests of Memphis.

The prominence of Memphis during the earliest periods is indicated by the extensive cemeteries of the Early Dynastic period (c. 2925–c. 2575 bce) and Old Kingdom (c. 2575–c. 2130 bce) that cluster along the desert bluffs to the west. Large elaborately niched tombs of the 1st and 2nd dynasties (c. 2925–c. 2650 bce) found at Ṣaqqārah, once argued to be royal monuments, were later accepted as private tombs of powerful courtiers.

The Old Kingdom

Memphis reached preeminence by the 3rd dynasty. The 3rd-century-bce historian Manetho calls the 3rd and 4th dynasties (c. 2650–c. 2465 bce) Memphite, and the huge royal pyramid tombs of this period, in the necropolises of Memphis, confirm this. Djoser, the second king of the 3rd dynasty, was the builder of the Step Pyramid of Ṣaqqārah, the earliest royal foundation at Memphis and the first important stone building in Egypt. Imhotep, the king’s architect and adviser, is credited with this architectural feat; his reputation as a wise man and physician led in later times to his deification and his identification with the Greek god Asclepius.

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The remains of several unfinished or badly ruined pyramids near Memphis have been attributed to other 3rd-dynasty kings. The first king of the 4th dynasty, Snefru, built two pyramid tombs at Dahshūr. The three great pyramids of Giza belong to Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, later 4th-dynasty monarchs. The Great Sphinx at Giza dates from the time of Khafre. The last known king of this dynasty, Shepseskaf, built his tomb at South Ṣaqqārah. It was not a pyramid but a distinctive oblong structure with sloping sides, now called the Maṣṭabat Firʿawn.

The royal pyramids are surrounded by large cemeteries where the courtiers and officials who had served the king during his lifetime were buried. The beautiful reliefs in certain of these tombs include scenes of daily life and thus give some idea of the crafts, costumes, and occupations of the royal court of Memphis. Since little has survived of domestic architecture and household furnishings, these reliefs are a valuable source of information on such subjects. A notable exception to the general rule of loss and destruction is the hidden tomb of Queen Hetepheres, the mother of Khufu, which was discovered near the Great Pyramid of Giza. Though the queen’s body was unaccountably missing from her sarcophagus, her funerary equipment and furniture survived. The exquisite craftsmanship of these objects testify, as do the splendid low reliefs of the tombs, to the high development of the arts and crafts of the period. Indeed, it is believed by some scholars that the Old Kingdom, influenced by the craftsmen of the Memphite court and the philosopher-theologians of Ptah, reached a peak of “classic” culture that was never surpassed in Egypt.

The kings of the 5th dynasty (c. 2465–c. 2325 bce) moved south of Giza to build their funerary monuments; their pyramids, at Abū Ṣīr, are much smaller than those of the 4th dynasty, but the pyramid temples and causeways were decorated with fine reliefs. This dynasty was probably marked by a decline of Memphite influence paralleling the rise of a sun cult centred at Heliopolis. The major monuments of the period are not the pyramids but the sun temples, which were, however, also part of the so-called Memphite pyramid area, not far from Abū Ṣīr.

During the 6th dynasty, which Manetho also designates as Memphite, the funerary monuments in the pyramid field of Ṣaqqārah continued to decline in size and workmanship. At that time the influence of the centralized government at Memphis began to wane, as is indicated by the increased prominence of provincial cities and the number of fine tombs located away from the Memphis area. This process of decentralization ended in the First Intermediate Period, a time of internal breakdown. Manetho’s 7th and 8th dynasties (c. 2150–c. 2130 bce) are both called Memphite, but it is believed that both dynasties together comprised a very short period and that the old Memphite house lost its control over the provincial princes soon after the end of the 6th dynasty.