HOW MEMPHIS BECAME EGYPT & GENERAL TERMINOLOGY

Memphis was the sacred city of the cult of Ptah (the

third possible creator according to Egyptian theologies),
and was known to the Greeks as the ancient capital of
Egypt, and came to symbolise Egypt as a whole.
Memphis is situated near the Giza plateaux, and as such,
was associated with the Great Pyramids of Giza, the
Sphinx and the various magnificent temples of the earlier
periods. These monuments were, to the Greeks, the symbols
of a very ancient, wise and powerful civilisation, and
thus the name for Memphis became synonymous with the land
of Egypt. ("Memphis." Encyclopdia Britannica, 2010.)
The Ancient Egyptian name for Memphis was Hut-ka-Ptah1,
meaning, house-of-the-ka2-of-Ptah, and stemmed from the
name of the temple complex. ("Memphis." Encyclopdia
Britannica, 2010.) The Egyptian name for Memphis proper
(the town), came from the name of a nearby pyramid: Meryra-men-nofer (Meryra is established and perfect). This
was abbreviated to Men-nofer, and used for the town.
(Morkot 2005:36-37)
These
two
names,
Men-nofer
and
Hut-ka-Ptah
was
misunderstood by the Greeks, and rendered as Memphis and
Aigyptos, respectfully. (Morkot 2005:36-37) This came
about as the result of the typical misunderstanding and
wrong-hearing that Greek scholars are notorious for.
Ancient Egyptian had certain tones, the nature and amount
of which is lost today. All we know is that they were
1

The Ancient Egyptian language is known as a Hamito-Semite language.

This means that it has many Semitic elements, such as not indicating
vowels clearly, and having many foreign pronunciations that modern
scholars are still struggling to decipher and render in modern
languages. Thus, the Egyptian words used here are generally accepted
as correct, however there is no way of being absolutely sure. Thus,
the words Men-ofer and Memphis may not seem at all similar to the
modern eye and ear, however, the ancient Egyptian pronunciation would
most probably render the words as homophones.
2
Ka is the life-force of a person/being, according to Egyptian
mystism. Together with the akh and ba, it forms the soul.

sufficiently strange enough that no Greek scholar gave

the correct spelling or pronunciation of any Egyptian
word.
The Egyptians called themselves remetj (the people), as
opposed
to
Nehesiu
(black
Nubians,
Southerners),
Tjehenu (Libyans, Westerners) and Aamu (everyone East
of Egypt)(Morkot 2005:15-16). They called their land
Kemet, the Black (the black fertile soil deposited
annually by the Nile), as opposed to Deshret, the Red
(the desert, specifically, but generally used for
everywhere else not Egyptian). (Knapp 1988:34, 102-103)

SOURCES
1.The Egyptians

AN INTRODUCTION

By: Robert G. Morkot

Published by: Routledge, 2005
ISBN 0-415-27104-5

2.The History and Culture of Ancient Western

Asia and Egypt
By: A. Bernard Knapp, Department of Archaeology, University of
Glasgow

Published by: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1988 Print

ISBN 0-534-10645-5

3.Encyclopaedia
Suite 2010

Britannica

Ultimate

Reference

Ver: 2010.01.00.000000000, Encyclopdia Britannica.

4.An A to Z of Ancient Egypt (2007 Edition)

By: Simon Cox & Susan Davies
Published: Mainstream Publishing Company (Edinburgh)
ISBN 9781845961985