MEMPHIS, mem'fis, Egypt, an ancient city near the apex of the Nile Delta, 12 miles south of Cairo, according to Herodotu.s, founded by Menes, the first king of Egypt. It was a large, rich and splendid city, and the second capital of Egypt. After the fall of Thebes it became the sole capital. Among its buildings the temples of Ptah, Osiris, Serapis, etc., and its palaces were described as remark able. At the time of the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses (524 a.c.) it was the chief commer cial centre of the country and was connected by canals with the Lakes of Maoris and Marco tis. With the rise of Alexandria the import ance of Memphis declined, and it was finally destroyed by the Arabs in the 7th century. Is Strabo's time (20 A.D.) it was, in population and size, next to Alexandria; in biblical history it is mentioned as Moph and Noph. The name Memphis is a corruption of Men-nofer, cgood abode." Edrisi, in the 12th century, describes its remains as extant in his time. Among the works specified by him are a monolithic tem ple of granite 13y, feet high, 12 long and 7 broad, entirely covered within and without with inscriptions, and statues of great beauty and dimensions, one of which was 45 feet high, of a single block of red granite. These nem
then extended about nine miles in every direc tion, but the destruction has since been se great, chiefly for the construction of Fostat, an Arabic city on the opposite bank of the Nile. that although Pococke and Bruce fixed upon the village of Mitrahineh as the site (where prone on a mound are two colossal statues of Rameses II), this was not accurately ascer tained until the French expedition to Egypt, when the discoveries of numerous heaps of rubbish, of blocks of granite covered with hier oglyphics and sculpture, and of colossal frag ments scattered over a space of three in circumference, decided the matter. views of the great temple of Ptah, the palace of Apis, the sepulchre of the Apis bulls, por tions of the White Wall and of pyramids have been identified. Consult Petrie and Walker (in 'Publications,' Egyptian Research Ac count, London 1908).