MEMPHIS. A city of ancient Egypt, situ ated about 12 miles south of modern Cairo, on the left bank of the Nile (Map: Egypt, E 3). It is said to have been founded by \Imes• the first historical King of ancient Egypt, hut this is as little probable as the statement in Ilerodotus that tlenes gained the ground for building Mem phis by diking off the Nile. King t'ehorens. whom Diodorus calls the founder of .Memphk, cannot be identified. It is certain that a city called 'the White Wall' stood on the spot front prehistoric times; this name (1,eukon Trichosl was still attached to the citadel and the neighbor ing quarter of :Memphis in the (reek epoch. The kings of the Fourth to the Sixth Dynasty built their residence, not very far from Memphis. and their pyramids are in the vicinity. but Memphis proper received its name and importanee from the King of the Sixth Dynasty ( Pepy or Arm I.), who built his pyramid and residence not far west of the small ancient city of 'the White Wall.' The name of that py ra .1/ rtt•nOier, al"Hle: extended to the whole city. and. cor rupted to .1/cuje, came down to the classiest writ.•rs. In the seventh century ft.c. the Assyri ans called the city Alempi; in the ltible the name has been corrupted to Aloph and Noph. Memphis, which had a very favorable situation, near the head of the Delta. became the capital of Egypt. In later times. several dynasties preferred other but Memphis always remained at least 111e second capital of Egypt• and the second city of the land in wealth and population. The conquest e 6yt he Ethiopians, Assyrians, and Persians do not seem to have affected it much, and the writers of the earlier Roman period still describe it as filled with temples and palaces of amazing size and beauty. the 'sewn, the Serapeum. and others. The decline of the city was rapid after the Arab conquest (at. which
time it was still the seat of a Governor), when Fostat (Old Cairo) was erected in the neighbor hood. Fostat and subsequently Cairo were built of stones taken from the deserted buildings of Memphis, and thus it came about that the ancient city entirely disappeared. The only remarkable monuments left there at present are lie two colossal statues of Rameses 11. (originally 42 feet high), lying on the mound near the modern village of Mit-Rahineh, and marking the entrance to the principal and earliest temple of Memphis, that of Ptah (Greek Ilepinestns), and the centre of the 'White Wall.' Abd-ul-Latif, as late as the thirteenth century A.D., found remarkable ruins on the site of old Memphis. The insignificant rubbish-mounds (of Mit-Rahineh, Bedrashen, En nagiziyeh. etc.) extend three or four miles from north to south. The classical writers give very exaggerated accounts of the size of the city. The immense necropolis west of it, including the pyra mids and tombs of Saqqara, still bears testi mony, however, to the former importance of Mem phis. The principal god of the city was Ptah, the 'master craftsman' among the gods, who was believed to have formed the world; afterwards the conception of this deity was called Ptah Sokar (a combination of Ptah and Sokar, the god of the western suburb), embodied in the Apis bull and others. The numerous Pluenician merchants had a quarter of their own with a temple of Astarte. Consult: Description de l'Egypte, vol. v. (Paris, Lepsius, Denk mnice pus A eyypten vnd A et hiopien (Berlin, 1849-5S) ; Mariette, Le Wen peum de Memphis (Paris, 1832) ; Diimichen, K arte des Stud tgc bietes ron Memphis (Leipzig, 1895). See also EGYPT.