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How Did the Ancient City of Memphis Rise to Prominence

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“Then Horus stood over the land. He is the uniter of this land, proclaimed in the great name: Ta-tenen, South-of-his-Wall, Lor of Eternity. The sprouted the two Great Magicians upon his head. He is Horus who arose as king of Upper and Lower Egypt, who united the Two Lands in the Nome of the Wall, the place in which the Two Lands were united.
Reed and papyrus were placed on the double door of the House of Ptah. That means Horus and Seth, pacified and united. They fraternized so as to cease quarreling in whatever place they might be, being united in the House of Ptah." <ref> Lichtheim, Miriam, ed. <i> Ancient Egyptian Literature</i>. Volume 1, The Old and Middle Kingdoms. (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006), pgsp. 53</ref>
In addition to Memphis being the home of Ptah and his cult, it also served as the largest collective necropolis in the world. Stretching from Giza in the north, the Memphite necropolis included the sites of Abusir, Saqqara, Dashur, and several smaller sites. The Great Pyramids, the sun temples of Fifth Dynasty, the Serapeum, and the many animal necropolises of the Late Period are also part of this vast city of the dead. The practice of burying the dead on the west bank of the Nile River across from Memphis began in the Second Dynasty, <ref> Lehner, pgs. 78-82</ref> and with the exception of the Twelfth Dynasty and the New Kingdom, most of Egypt’s kings, nobles, and important people were interred in this region. Modern people may see Memphis as a place of death, but since the Egyptians believed in eternal life, they would have viewed the Memphite necropolis much differently.

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