Ramesses lying down
A ten-metre colossus.
Berthold Werner — CC BY 3.0 · Alberto-g-rovi — CC BY 3.0 · Daniel Mayer — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Vyacheslav Argenberg — CC BY 4.0 · Unknown authorUnknown author — Public domain · Wknight94 talk — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Ovedc — CC BY-SA 4.0
The remains of Memphis, the first capital of a united Egypt, said to have been founded by King Menes around 3000 BC, the capital through the Old Kingdom and among the country's most important cities for centuries. Little survives of the great city, beneath today's village of Mit Rahina and its fields. The site holds a small open-air museum whose highlight is a colossal limestone statue of Ramesses II, about ten metres long, lying in its own building and viewed from an upper gallery that reveals the fineness of its carving. In the garden around the museum is an alabaster sphinx, one of the largest sphinxes carved from that stone, along with statues, columns, stelae and an embalming table for the Apis bull. A foreign visitor's ticket costs about two hundred Egyptian pounds, and it opens from eight to five. A visit is short, about an hour, and usually part of a day trip with Saqqara and Dahshur.
A ten-metre colossus.
Among the largest.
Old Kingdom capital.
Mit Rahina, Badrashin, Giza, near Saqqara
A short visit worth it for the Ramesses colossus and the alabaster sphinx, best on a trip combined with Saqqara and Dahshur.