History
According to Manetho, before the rule of the 10 Kings of Thinis, there was a dynasty of 30 kings based in Memphis, who ruled for 1,790 years. The location of the dynastic city of Memphis is known, it’s near the modern town of Mit Rahina, 20 km south of Giza. The city of Memphis was the capital of the Egyptian Old Kingdom, said to have been founded by King Menes after he unified Egypt circa 5510 BC ULT (or 3100 BC CET). It was a major city throughout most of Egyptian history and is the root of where the name ‘Egypt’ is derived. While the city of Memphis founded by Menes, could be at the location of the earlier city of Memphis, it is not necessarily the case. The name Memphis is derived from the ancient Egyptian words ‘Hut-ka-Ptah,’ meaning ‘Enclosure of the ka of Patah.’ The term ‘ka of Patah’ translates as essentially the ‘spirit of Ptah,’ or more literally ‘craftsmen,’ as Ptah was the patron deity of craftsmen. Therefore the name of the city could be read as the ‘enclosure,’ or ‘fortress’ of the craftsmen. This basic term is found in several ancient cultures across the region, such as the ancient Sumerian Bad-tibira, which also meant ‘fortress’ of the smiths or craftsmen. Like the Egyptian city of Memphis, Bad-tibira was both a historic city in Iraq, and an ancient mythical city from a time period thousands of years before the foundation of Sumer. This concept of the ‘city of the smiths,’ whatever it might have originally meant, is so ingrained in the ancient Middle Eastern culture that it even found its way into the Tanakh, (the Biblical Old Testament). In the earliest part of the Bible, the first city was built by Cain, the first metalsmith. Naturally it is possible that King Menes built his capital where he thought the ancient city of Memphis was, however, there is no reason to assume that he did. If one does assume that Menes’ Memphis was in the vicinity of the ancient Memphis, then one faces the fact that Menes’ Memphis was in the area that is today covered by modern Greater Cairo. Finding the original Memphis under all that might not be possible.