Memphisancient city, Egypt also spelled Manf, Minf , or Manfish

According to a commonly accepted tradition, Memphis was founded about 2925 bc by Menes, who supposedly united the two prehistoric kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt. The precise historical identity of this king is still in question, but there is little doubt as to his connection with Memphis or of the importance of the city from the earliest period. The site had obvious political advantages, being located at the junction of the boundaries of the two formerly separate kingdoms. The local god of Memphis was Ptah, patron of craftsmen and artisans and, in some contexts, a creator god as well. The great temple of Ptah was one of the city’s most prominent structures. According to an Egyptian document known as the “Memphite Theology,” Ptah created humans through the power of his heart and speech; the concept, having been shaped in the heart of the creator, was brought into existence through the divine utterance itself. In its freedom from the conventional physical analogies of the creative act and in its degree of abstraction, this text is virtually unique in Egypt, and it testifies to the philosophical sophistication of the priests of Memphis.

The original name of the city was the White Wall, and the term may have referred originally to the king’s palace, whose walls would have been built of whitewashed brick. The colour also had political significance: white was the colour of the Lower Egyptian crown.

No remains of the period of Menes have come to light in the city site itself, but the evidence of the Memphite necropolises confirms the traditional age of the city. The large, elaborately niched tombs of the 1st and 2nd dynasties (c. 2925–c. 2650 bc) found at Ṣaqqārah have been claimed as royal tombs, but some scholars doubt that Memphis was the sole, or even the primary, capital of Egypt under those dynasties. According to the 3rd-century-bc historian Manetho, the 1st and 2nd dynasties originated at Tjene, or Thinis, in Upper Egypt. Thinis is near Abydos, and excavations at Abydos uncovered rectangular cut-stone tombs (mastabas) of this period that were long believed to be the royal burials of the first dynasties. To complicate the matter still further, there are equally important tombs of the period at other sites, such as Tarkhan and Abū Ruwaysh. Scholars disagree as to which of these are actually royal tombs, which are simply memorials, and which are tombs of important courtiers.