MEMPHIS
(Mit Riheina) Egypt.
About 32
km S of Cairo, a short distance E of El-Bedreshein, the
first capital of the united Upper and Lower Egypt (cf.
Diod. 1.50 et passim; 16.48-51). Menes (ca. 3000 B.C.)
had founded a fortress here, the White Wall (Mennofer),
which became Memphis in Greek and later also Pephis
(Hierocles,
Synecdemus, ca. A.D. 535). The city venerated
the god Ptah, who in his capacity as a creator of the universe, was identified with the Grecian Hephaistos. Consequently, the Egyptian temple was known as the Hephaisteion. Herodotos (ca. 450 B.C.), wrote at length
(2. passim; 3.27) about the city and her kings, mentioning a chapel, dedicated to Aphrodite the Refugee, which
was erected within the court of the Palace of King
Proteus (cf. Hom.
Od. 4384ff). This Aphrodite is not
the goddess, wife of Hephaistos, but Menelaus' wife
(Herod. 2.1 lf), who, having been rescued from Paris,
resided with the king until she was claimed by her husband. In 332 B.C., when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, he celebrated his victories here in the Greek manner. On his return from the Oasis of Ammon (Siwa),
he was crowned Pharaoh in the Hephaisteion and when
he died in 323 B.C., his body was kept here until his
tomb was completed in Alexandria. Politically, Ptolemy I
transferred the capital to Alexandria, but Memphis continued to be the religious capital (cf. the decree of the Rosetta Stone) with Ptah, however, losing his importance and prestige to Serapis. The Bull Apis, the incarnation
of Osiris, resumed his functions as symbol of the new
official god Serapis and, consequently, the burial place
of the sacred bulls has since been known as the Serapeion. Imitating Alexander, the Ptolemies were crowned in the Temple of Ptah, a custom that survived until Ptolemy Physkon ca. 171-130 B.C. (
Diod. 33.13). When
Strabo visited Egypt (ca. 25 B.C.), Memphis still attracted visitors. They saw (
Strab. 17.31) the Temple of Apis room and the Hephaisteion. They could amuse
themselves by watching the bullfight until an edict of
Theodosius in A.D. 389 put an end to all such diversions.
In 640, when Fustat was chosen to be the capital of
Arabic Egypt, it was built out of the ruined blocks of
the edifices of Memphis. The colossal statue of Ramses
II, now erected in front of Cairo Railway Station, was
probably the one seen by Strabo at Memphis. Although
there is little now to be seen at Memphis, its necropolis, Saqqara, reflects its lost prosperity. This lies a short distance to the W, where the site is easily recognized by the Step Pyramid. Apart from the rich tombs of
the Old Kingdom, the sanctuaries and the labyrinth of
subterranean galleries related to Imhotep, there are the
Serapeion and the Exedra of the poets and philosophers.
The Serapeion, N of the Step Pyramid, contains in
its subterranean passages the granite and basalt sarcophagi of 24 sacred bulls. These sarcophagi were kept in separate rooms, hewn in either side of the passage. The latest sarcophagi were in use until the late Ptolemaic
period. The approach to the Serapeion was flanked by
a long corridor of sphinxes, confirming what Strabo had
seen (17.32), and nearby in the Exedra were set up
statues of ten of the Greek poets and philosophers arranged in a semicircle around Homer. They date from the reign of Ptolemy I.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Mariette,
Le Serapeum de Memphis
(1857); Porter & Moss,
Top. Bibl., III. Memphis
(1931); C. Picard, “La Statue-portrait de Démetrius de
Phalère au serapeion de Memphis: exèdre des poètes et
des sages,”
Mon Piot 47 (1953) 77-97
PI; id., “Autour de Serapeion de Memphis,”
RA 47 (1956) 65-77
I; J. P. Lauer, “Fouilles et travaux effectués it Saqqarah de novembre 1951 à juin 1952,”
ASAE 53 (1955) 153-66
I; W. Emery, “Excavation at Saqqara,” 35,2 (1939); 36,2; E. Brunner-Traut & V. Hell,
Aegypten (1966) 452-66
MP; K. Michalowski,
Aegypten (1968) 452-53, 462-64
MPI.
S. SHENOUDA
