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Memphis at Mit Rahina: reading the fallen colossus of Ramesses II

19 October 2026

Mit Rahina is a village about 20 km south of Cairo, on the west bank of the Nile, built over the ruins of Memphis, Egypt's capital for much of its history. Its small open-air museum is the place to read Ramesses II at arm's length. A limestone colossus of the king lies on its back there, with his names cut deep into the stone.

Most of the ancient city lies under fields, palm groves and the modern village. What stands above ground is a garden of statues, stelae and temple blocks, an alabaster sphinx, and the stone tables where the sacred Apis bulls were embalmed.

The colossus lies on its back under a gallery

Giovanni Battista Caviglia found the statue in 1820 near the southern gate of the temple of Ptah, the great temple of the city's god. It is carved from limestone and measures about 10 metres as it lies. The lower legs and base broke away, so it rests face up in a hall built to protect it, with stairs to a gallery above. Ramesses wears the white crown of Upper Egypt, part of it now missing.

The statue was one of a pair. Caviglia found its twin the same year, a standing granite figure about 11 metres tall that stood in Ramesses Square in Cairo from the 1950s until 2006 and now greets visitors at the Grand Egyptian Museum.

On the fallen giant, three cartouches are cut into the stone: on the right shoulder, on the chest and on the belt. The signs are large and sharply cut.

Cartouche

Two cartouches spell the full name of Ramesses the Great

Each ring holds one of his two royal names. The throne name, wsr-mꜣꜥt-rꜥ stp-n-rꜥ, said "user-maat-ra setep-en-ra", means "the justice of Ra is strong, chosen of Ra". Read it from the sun disc (N5) for Ra, placed first out of respect for the god. Then come the head of a canine (F12) for wsr, "strong", and the seated goddess Maat (C10). The second half is the adze (U21) for stp, "chosen", the water ripple (N35) for n, "of", and the sun disc again.

The birth name, rꜥ-ms-sw mry-imn, said "ra-mes-su meri-amun", means "Ra is the one who bore him, beloved of Amun". Amun's name stands at the top of the ring, spelled with the reed leaf (M17), the game board (Y5) and the water ripple. The canal (N36) writes mr, "beloved". Then come the sun disc, three fox skins (F31) for ms, "born", the folded cloth (S29) for s and the sedge (M23) for sw, "him".

Sun Head and neck of a canine Goddess Maat Adze Ripple of water Flowering reed Game board Canal Three fox skins Folded cloth Sedge

Write Usermaatre Setepenre in a cartouche

The alabaster sphinx carries no royal name

Outside in the garden lies the largest piece on the site, a sphinx of calcite, the stone usually called Egyptian alabaster. It is about 8 metres long and 4 metres high, and it came out of the ground in 1912 during Flinders Petrie's excavations.

No inscription survives on it to name the king it shows. From its style it is usually placed in the 18th Dynasty, and the king proposed for its face ranges from Amenhotep I to Amenhotep III, with Hatshepsut among the candidates.

Royal statues and Apis tables fill the garden

Statues, column pieces and inscribed blocks from the temple of Ptah line the garden paths. On the royal ones, look for the sedge (M23) and the bee (L2) standing just before a cartouche. Together they read nsw-bjtj, "king of Upper and Lower Egypt", the title that introduces a king's throne name. Where a block names the city's god, Ptah is spelled with three alphabet signs: the stool (Q3) for p, the bread loaf (X1) for t and the twisted wick (V28) for ḥ.

In the same area stands the embalming house of the Apis bulls, the living animals sacred to Ptah. Its great stone tables, carved in the shape of lion beds, held each dead bull while priests embalmed it for burial in the Serapeum at Saqqara. Ahmed Badawy found the first remains in 1941, and Nectanebo II, one of the last native kings, had the house restored. Access to this part changes, so ask at the entrance.

Bee Stool Bread loaf Twisted flax wick

Memphis took its name from a pyramid town

The early city was Ineb-hedj, inb-ḥḏ, "the White Walls". The word for white is written with the mace with a round head (T3), ḥḏ, said "hedj". Later the city took the name of Pepi I's pyramid to the west, Men-nefer, mn-nfr, "enduring and beautiful", written with the game board (Y5) for mn and the heart and windpipe (F35) for nfr. Greek speakers heard it as Memphis.

The temple was Hut-ka-Ptah, ḥwt-kꜣ-ptḥ, "mansion of the ka of Ptah", with the raised arms of the ka (D28) set inside the enclosure sign (O6) for ḥwt. The priest Manetho rendered the temple's name in Greek as Aigyptos, the source of our word Egypt.

Manetho also tells that Menes, the king who united the Two Lands, founded the city by turning the Nile aside with dikes. Menes is often identified with Narmer, whose Horus name is the catfish (K8) and the chisel (U23). An inscription of the earlier ruler Iry-Hor, found in Sinai in 2012, suggests the city is older than Narmer's reign.

Mace with a round head Heart and windpipe Raised arms Rectangular enclosure Catfish Chisel

Open the Memphis place page

Nine signs cover the royal names on the site

Learn these before the trip, and the names on the colossus and the garden blocks become easy to label.

Cartouche (V10): rings each of the king's names
Sun disc (N5): rꜥ, Ra, in both of Ramesses II's names
Head of a canine (F12): wsr, "strong", in Usermaatre
Seated Maat (C10): mꜣꜥt, "justice", the heart of the throne name
Adze (U21): stp, "chosen", in Setepenre
Three fox skins (F31): ms, "born", in Ramesses
Game board (Y5): mn, in Amun and in Men-nefer
Sedge and bee (M23, L2): king of Upper and Lower Egypt

Side light lifts the worn garden signs

The colossus is the easy part. From the gallery above it, the belt cartouche fits in one photo.

The garden blocks are harder. Weather has worn many of them shallow, and a high midday sun flattens what is left. Come in the morning or late in the day, when the light rakes across the stone, or stand so the sun falls from one side of a sign. On a faint sign, take a steady photo and trace over it afterwards in Hiero Lens.

Read a cartouche with the camera

Questions

Is Mit Rahina worth visiting?

For anyone who wants to read hieroglyphs on real stone, yes. The colossus carries deep, clear cartouches you can study up close, and the garden adds royal titles and the name of Ptah. The museum is small, and an hour is usually enough.

Can you visit Memphis and Saqqara on the same day?

Yes. Saqqara lies a few kilometres to the west, and many tours from Cairo combine the two. At Saqqara the reading moves back more than a thousand years, to the Pyramid Texts of Unas and the captioned scenes in Old Kingdom tombs.

Was Memphis the capital of ancient Egypt?

It was the seat of the kings through the Old Kingdom, and it stayed one of Egypt's great cities long after, even when kings ruled from Thebes or the Delta. Ptah's temple there remained one of the country's main sanctuaries.

Glossary

alphabet sign: A hieroglyph that stands for one consonant, such as the horned viper for f. Egyptian has about 25 of them, used beside signs for two or three sounds.
birth name: The name a king was given at birth, written in the second cartouche after the title "son of Ra". Egyptologists also call it the nomen.
cartouche: An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
dynasty: A line of kings counted together, usually one family. Egyptologists number Egypt's kings in about 30 dynasties, following the priest Manetho.
Lower Egypt: The north of Egypt, the flat Nile Delta from around Memphis to the sea. It is called lower because it is downstream.
Maat: Truth, justice and the right order of the world, shown as a goddess with an ostrich feather on her head. Kings claimed to uphold it.
mummification: Preserving a body for the afterlife. Embalmers took out the organs, dried the body in natron salt for about 40 days and wrapped it in linen.
sphinx: A statue with the body of a lion and the head of a king, a guardian of temples and tombs. The Great Sphinx at Giza is the largest.
stela: An upright stone slab carved with words and pictures, set up in tombs and temples or to mark a border.
temple: The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
throne name: The name a king took when he came to the throne, written in the first cartouche after the title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt". Egyptologists also call it the prenomen.
Upper Egypt: The south of Egypt, the narrow Nile valley from around Memphis to Aswan. It is called upper because it is upstream.