Memphis, city and capital of ancient Egypt and an important centre during much of Egyptian history. Memphis is located south of the Nile River delta, on the west bank of the river, and about 15 miles (24 km) south of modern Cairo. Closely associated with the ancient city’s site are the cemeteries, or necropolises, of Memphis, where the famous pyramids of Egypt are located. From north to south the main pyramid fields are: Abū Ruwaysh, Giza, Zāwiyat al-ʿAryān, Abū Ṣīr, Ṣaqqārah, and Dahshūr. The Memphis archaeological zone was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.
Foundation and Early Dynastic Period
According to a commonly accepted tradition, Memphis was founded about 2925 bce by Menes, who supposedly united the two prehistoric kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt. The original name of the city was the White Walls, and the term may have referred originally to the king’s palace, which would have been built of whitewashed brick. The modern name of Memphis is a Greek version of the Egyptian Men-nefer, the name of the nearby pyramid of the 6th-dynasty (c. 2325–c. 2150 bce) king Pepi I. Another geographic term for Memphis, Hut-ka-Ptah (“mansion of the ka of Ptah”), rendered Aigyptos in Greek, was later applied to the country as a whole.
Ptah, the local god of Memphis, was a patron of craftsmen and artisans and, in some contexts, a creator god as well. The great temple of Ptah was one of the city’s most prominent structures. According to an Egyptian document known as the “Memphite Theology,” Ptah created humans through the power of his heart and speech; the concept, having been shaped in the heart of the creator, was brought into existence through the divine utterance itself. In its freedom from the conventional physical analogies of the creative act and in its degree of abstraction, this text is virtually unique in Egypt, and it testifies to the philosophical sophistication of the priests of Memphis.
The prominence of Memphis during the earliest periods is indicated by the extensive cemeteries of the Early Dynastic period (c. 2925–c. 2575 bce) and Old Kingdom (c. 2575–c. 2130 bce) that cluster along the desert bluffs to the west. Large elaborately niched tombs of the 1st and 2nd dynasties (c. 2925–c. 2650 bce) found at Ṣaqqārah, once argued to be royal monuments, were later accepted as private tombs of powerful courtiers.