Colossi of Memnon

Notes

• ·Erected at the entrance to the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III (18th Dynasty, r. c. 1386–1353 BCE) on the west bank of the Nile at ancient Thebes (modern Luxor, Egypt).
• ·Each statue represents Amenhotep III seated on his throne, hands on his knees, gazing toward the rising sun. Side panels depict the Nile god Hapy tying together the heraldic plants of Upper and Lower Egypt; the queen mother Mutemwiya and principal wife Tiye stand at his legs.
• ·Quarried from quartzite at Gebel el-Silsila (near Aswan), c. 675 km from Thebes — an extraordinary logistical achievement for the 14th century BCE.
• ·In 27 BCE an earthquake cracked the northern colossus. From that point until c. 199 CE, the damaged statue produced a resonant sound at dawn — described by ancient Greek and Roman visitors as 'singing'. Greek and Roman tourists misidentified the statues as Memnon, the son of the dawn-goddess Eos killed by Achilles in the Trojan War, and interpreted the sound as Memnon greeting his mother.
• ·The Roman Emperor Septimius Severus restored the northern colossus c. 199 CE, after which the sound ceased.
• ·The mortuary temple behind the colossi was largely dismantled by subsequent pharaohs who used it as a quarry. The colossi survive as the only significant above-ground remnants of what was originally the largest temple complex in Egypt.
• ·Ongoing archaeological work (since 1998, under the Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project) has revealed extensive temple remains in the surrounding area.