As he was being buried Zeus thought a little bit of immortality would be in order, and Memnon was awarded his own flock of birds called Memnomides which could come and visit his grave. He never really came back himself and Eos still weeps tears of dew for him.

Now there happens to be two massive statues which were once a tribute to Amenhotep the Third of Egypt. These were later neglected and damaged slightly by an earthquake. This gave one of them a mystical significance as it emitted weird moaning noises in the wind.

When the Greeks came across it they were delighted to discover the strange ‘speaking’ statue and some bright spark decided maybe Memnon had come back after all and was trying to tell them something.

Over the centuries, Memnon became something of a tourist attraction and at one time Hadrian himself popped over to have a look. Even though he had to wait two days for Memnon to speak to him, he was impressed.

Hadrian had his personal poetess Julia Balbilla carve a poem on the statue in praise of himself and Memnon, which proves he was not above a bit of gratuitous graffiti. ‘Hadrian was here’ rather than Kilroy.

You can of course check it out for yourself as the statues still stand. But we cannot guarantee Memnon will speak to you. A refurbishment by Septimus Severus somewhere around 200 AD seemed to sever all articulation and Memnon has never uttered a stutter since.

We won’t tell you exactly where in Egypt the statues may be found as we don’t want any more tourists carving their names and dropping litter around poor old Memnon.

Share this page Cite this article

Article last revised on September 06, 2018 by Rowan Allen.
Editors: Peter J. Allen, Chas Saunders

References: Coming soon.

Permissions page

---