Cairo-Open Air Museum

Memphis was founded by King Narmer (or Nemes), the first pharaoh, around 3100Bc marking the beginning of the greatest era of the pharaonic civilization. When King Narmer originally of Upper Egypt, came to power he unified lower and Upper Egypt making Memphis its capital. Situated at 24km of what is now modern Cairo and placed symbolically at the spot where the Nile delta meets the valley, Memphis became the crossroad of Upper and Lower Egypt. The Egyptologists are not certain whether Narmer or Nemes could have been several successive kings of the same name rather than one person, but whatever the case Memphis became during that era the cradle of pharaonic civilization, a civilization so great that it created the calendar among other things.        

The name Memphis means “established and beautiful” and the city was filled during its glory days with palaces, gardens and temples. Even the Ancient Greeks called Memphis a cosmopolitan and prosperous city.

Little remains of Memphis greatness but we can get an idea of its importance by the size of the funerary complex built for the pharaohs. The cemetery starts at the edge of the desert at Saqqara runs for 35km to the south from Dasher and to Giza in the north.

For most of the pharaonic era Memphis stayed Egypt’s capital later to be replaced by Thebes (Luxor). By the end of the Second Kingdom when the absolute power of the pharaohs declined, Memphis remained Egypt’s second city until the 7th century AD. In all Memphis was inhabited for four millennia.

Hardly anything is left of the great city, and its former glory can only be imagined.  All that remains now is an open-air museum surrounding a fallen colossal statue of Ramses II. Housed in a pavilion, an alabaster sphinx weighing 80 tons dating back to the New Kingdom can be seen and two statues of Ramses II that originally stood in Nubian temples. Of special interest, to visitors of the Serapeum, are two huge beds weighing up to 50 tons a piece, on which the Apis bulls were mummified before they were taken to Saqqara.