The Colossi Of Memnon, are twin statues representing Amenhotep III in a seated position. His hands rest on his knees and his gaze is directed towards the east, in the direction of the Nile River and the rising sun. The statues are carved in blocks of quartzite, brought especially from Giza and the quarries of Gebel el-Silsila, are dedicated to King Amenophis III.
They are on the west bank of the Nile, west of the city of Luxor in ancient Egypt.
The colossi are famous since antiquity because the one on the right side, called talking colossus, had the peculiarity of emitting a sound at sunrise. The Greeks, and more specifically Strabo, detected this phenomenon and gave rise to the legend. It was said that this colossus was the image of the mythical warrior Memnon, son of the Aurora, killed in a confrontation with Achilles, and every morning he greeted the appearance of his mother on the horizon with a moan.
The two Colossi of Memnon were made with a type of stone Giza quartzite, very fragile and sensitive to the weather. Already in antiquity, (one thinks from the Ptolemaic era onwards, or even earlier), Theories Behind the Singing Statues of The Colossi of Memnon the statues became famous and known for a strange phenomenon. The force of the wind had in fact caused cracks in the body of the structures over time.
When they were forced through these cracks, the gusts of wind caused a noise similar to a lament. This sound was audible at dawn. Lucio Flavio Filostrato, an Athenian writer who lived between 172 and 247 A.D., said that at sunrise, as soon as the first ray touched the mouth of one of the statues, an admiring public could hear the voice of the Colossus rising powerfully towards the sky.
Some interpreted this sort of lament as the hero Memnon heartfelt greeting to his mother. The noise probably resulted from the passage of air through a crack in the stone caused by an earthquake or its expansion due to the sudden heat of the first rays of the sun.
Unfortunately, the giant has been silent since 170 AD, after the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus ordered its restoration.
The grandeur of The Colossi of Memnon and the incredible state of preservation make a visit not to be missed for anyone who goes up the Nile currents to the high valley of the river, to reach Luxor, an open-air museum.
Concluding the article of the Colossi of Memnon, we would be happy to inform you that we have tailor-made packages for vacations in Egypt with a Nile cruise to Luxor and Aswan, Book your dream trip now!
For many years I worked on the excavation and conservation of the temple of Seti I at Qurna, so I passed daily by Kom el-Hettán, the site of the famous funerary temple of Amenhotep III and saw its lamentable situation.
This extensive area, since the 1960s, was covered by weeds more and more abundant since the irrigation of the fields both south and north of the site, especially between the months of November to March. Subsequently, in the 1980s, the deteriorating condition of the colossi became evident to the eyes of the many tourists who visited the colossal statues.
