Luxor West Bank Monuments - the Colossi of Memnon

Luxor West Bank - Monuments

The Colossi of Memnon - One of the main attractions on the West Bank of Luxor, a landmark that everyone passes on the way to the monument zone, is the two gigantic statues known as the Colossi of Memnon.
These two huge, ruined statues, about 17 m high each, once stood at the entrance gate of the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III. They were cut from two massive granite blocks, brought from quarries near Cairo, and carved to represent the pharaoh Amenhotep III of the 18th dynasty.
The legend connected with their name is interesting. After an earthquake (recorded by Strabo) in 27 BC, part of the northern colossus collapsed, and from then on, every morning at sunrise, the statue produced a strange musical melody.

The earliest Greek and Roman tourists came to hear the sound and gave the statue the name "Memnon", after the Trojan hero, son of Eos and Tithonus, who sang to his mother every morning at dawn. In fact, it is thought that the sound was produced when the sun heated the stones of Memnon. In the 3rd century AD, Septimius Severus tried to repair the damaged statue, and since then the mysterious "singing" has never been heard again. As a result of the legend, the whole of western Thebes became known as "Memnonia".
Each statue sits and rests on a huge granite pedestal.

On the columns at the back of the statues there are texts dedicated to Amenhotep III, and on the sides scenes of the "binding of the SMA symbol". The legs of the royal statues are flanked by smaller images of the Great Royal Wife, Queen Tiye.
A German firm specialising in cleaning large monuments recently undertook the cleaning of the Colossi of Memnon, revealing paint beneath thousands of years of dust and dirt.