Abstract
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> The capital city of Memphis was ancient Egypt’s oldest and largest city. However, the city’s origin is shrouded in myth. This study challenges five different references to Memphis, from both classical and historical accounts and concludes that Memphis’ boundary should be redefined. These accounts are reviewed to illustrate the confusion amongst early historians and travellers as to the precise location of Memphis and to highlight the association between the capital and the pyramids of the Giza Plateau. For the Old Kingdom, the urban limits of Memphis should not be restricted to the modern mound of Mit Rahina, but rather the boundaries should be expanded to parallel the Old Kingdom pyramids. Recent archaeological investigations, employing sub-surface sampling techniques, have revealed contemporary Old Kingdom occupational debris scattered throughout the entire Memphite region. The inclusion of archaeological material, in combination with the historical records, will create a different interpretation for Egypt’s Old Kingdom capital city. </span>
Highlights
Memphis has typically been regarded as the capital city for most of ancient Egypt’s Dynastic period
The classical and historical writers had conflicting views about what constituted Memphis. They all seem to agree on one thing; that pyramids are indivisible from the ancient capital city
One might even go so far to say that the Old Kingdom pyramids define the boundaries of the city
Summary
Memphis has typically been regarded as the capital city for most of ancient Egypt’s Dynastic period. ‘Memphis’ can refer to the capital city, located due east of the Saqqara necropolis Today, this area is known by its modern Arabic name, Mit Rahina (Fig. 1-C) and is defined by the surviving ancient ruins. Even though several later period occupation sites have been located in the region, there is next to no in situ Early Dynastic or Old Kingdom material at Memphis (Giddy 1993: 193). One explanation for this may be the sebakh-diggers, who have been using ancient mud-bricks as fertiliser on their fields for centuries. This stratum corresponds with the Old Kingdom levels recorded elsewhere in the region
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