Colossi of Memnon

 

Egypt

Egypt items

Egypt Monuments

Colossi of Memnon

Colossi of Memnon

The Colossi of Memnon is the name given to the two statues of Amenhotep III, the only remaining evidence of the immense funerary temple of the 14th century BC.

The sandstone statues stand almost 60ft tall and weigh roughly 1,300 tonnes a piece. During an earthquake in 27BC the colossi were cracked to half their height. It is from this moment that the statues started to emit a sound and the legend of the Oracle of Memnon was born. The site became a place of pilgrimage for the Greeks and Romans. In order to thank Memnon, the Emperor Septimius Severus re-erected the colossi, which then stop ‘speaking’.
“To the East the living, to the West the dead. Between them, symbolically situated at the far reaches of the Nile and desert’s fertile land, the Colossi of Memnon are the eternal guardians of the Theban necropolis. Now silent, they survey the secret and worrying world of the Beyond a world forever linked to the name of Tutankhamen, magnified by the extraordinary wealth of his tomb, the only intact discovery to this day.”

Category : Egypt Monuments
items Date : 01/02/2010
Author of items : Charles Rossignol