Memphis

an ancient city of Egypt. It was near the apex of the Nile delta, two miles south of Cairo. It rivaled Thebes in wealth and magnificence. After the fall of that city it became the capital of Egypt. It had a position of commanding commercial importance, being readily accessible from both the Mediterranean and the upper Nile. Extensive canals added to its commercial facilities. At present the site is occupied by squalid villages or strewn with blocks of granite half buried in sand. The remains are sufficient to show, however, quite independent of the accounts of the ancient geographers, that Memphis was a city of magnificent palaces and temples. There are colossal statues, variously described as from forty-five to seventy-five feet in height. One of the most striking features of the ancient city must have been an immense cemetery, known as the necropolis. In the center of the cemetery rose the pyramids of Memphis, in which the remains of kings were buried. The official nilometer of the ancients, a pillar on which the rising and falling waters of the Nile were recorded, stood in the river here. See Pyramids; Nile; Cairo