Memphis

Ancient capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom, and thereafter one of the most important cities of the Near East, situated at the point where the Nile begins to divide its waters at the head of the Delta, 24km south of Cairo. Traditionally, the city was believed to have been founded by Menes, first ruler of the 1st Dynasty in the early 3rd millennium bc. The site itself was seen as the seat of the creator god Ptah.

During the New Kingdom, Memphis became the second, or northern, capital of Egypt, parallel to Thebes, Egypt in the south. Despite the increased importance of the god Amon in Thebes, Ptah remained one of the principal gods of the pantheon. The Great Temple at Memphis was added to or rebuilt by virtually every king of the 18th Dynasty; chapels were constructed by Thutmose I and Thutmose IV, and by Amenhotep III. Amenhotep III's son Akhenaton built a temple to Aton in Memphis.

Memphis continued to be important in later times, not least because of its geographical position, and in 322 bc Alexander the Great used Memphis as his headquarters while making plans for his new city of Alexandria.

West of the city there are very extensive cemeteries, including the pyramid fields of Abu Ruwaysh, Giza, Egypt, Zawayet e-Aryan, Abu Si, Saqqara, and Dahshur.

[Sum.: H. S. Smith and D. G. Jeffreys, 1986, A survey of Memphis, Egypt. Antiquity, 60, 88–95]