Mit Rahina Museum Badrasheen Giza Egypt

Mit Rahina Museum Giza Egypt located in Giza governorate, with people always visiting the Giza Pyramids, yet most of them know nothing about this town.

Memphis city is the centre of Badrasheen in Giza. Memphis was the capital of the first Old Kingdom in ancient Egypt, since the unification of the north and south by King Narmer, until the year 2,200 BC.

Narmer was an ancient Egyptian king of the Early Dynastic period. He was considered the unifier of Egypt, and the founder of the First Dynasty, and in turn the first king of a unified Egypt.

What is in Memphis, Egypt?

Memphis was the first capital of ancient Egypt and is located about 18km south of Cairo. According to ancient Egyptian stories, the city was founded by King Menes about 3000 BC. It was protected by the patron Ptah, whose temple is located in the center. Since Memphis is located at the outlet of the Nile, it had many works and production sites. After Alexandria slowly rose, Memphis gradually lost its importance. In 1982, researches proved that the location of the city was shifted by the Nile, during the past millennia. The Nile was not regulated in ancient times and could flow back into a completely different riverbed in the event of a flood. The ancient capital was then founded much farther north, near the mastabas (stone bank) dating from the 1st and 2nd dynasties and the present small town of Abusir.

The museum consists of two parts, the indoors museum, and the outdoors museum. The indoors area contains that statue of Ramses II, and the ancient columns and statues of dwarfs. On the other hand, the outdoor area contains the Ramses Sphinx, and the Triad of Memphis statue.

The Ramses Sphinx

This Sphinx was fashioned to imitate the original Sphinx at the Giza Pyramids. Yet, the head of this Sphinx represents the face of Ramses II, rather than King Khufu, with the lion’s body constant.

The archetypal Egyptian sphinx usually had the body of a lion and the head of a man — usually the king, although examples of female (queen) sphinxes exist. A combination of human and leonine elements endowed the sphinx with the intelligence of a human being and the awesome physical prowess of a lion. 

Sphinxes appear early in the Egyptian artistic canon and remain an important royal and divine symbol throughout the Pharaonic Period. The Egyptian sphinx was quite distinct from the sphinx found in Greek mythology. The Egyptian sphinx was a protective, positive entity, while the Greek sphinx was a fearsome and dangerous creature.

Excavated by W. M. Flinders Petrie in 1913 near the Ptah Temple at Memphis, the Penn Museum's 13-ton sphinx is the largest sphinx in the Western Hemisphere. The sphinx, a lion with a human head, represents the power of the Egyptian king. Carved of a single block of red granite, quarried at Aswan, the five-fold titulary of Ramses II appears along the base of this sphinx.

 Ramses II's son and successor, Merenptah, added his own cartouches on the shoulders after his father's death. For several years after its arrival in Philadelphia, the sphinx sat in the garden in front of the Museum. The sphinx was moved inside the building in 1916. When the Coxe Wing was nearing completion in 1926, the sphinx was moved to the Lower Egypt gallery. In 2019, it was moved to the Main Entrance.

The statue of the Triad of Memphis

The Triad of Memphis consists of Ptah, Sekhmet, and their son Nefertem. The three Gods’ centre of worship was in Memphis. In Egyptian mythology, Memphis was believed to be under the protection of the God Ptah.

Ptah is the God of craftsmen and architects. Sekhmet was Ptah’s wife and the mother of Nefertem, the Lotus God. Sekhmet, meaning strong, was always represented as a lady with the head of a lioness sitting on the throne adorned by the sign of unification of the north and south of Egypt, topped by the sun disk and the Cobra snake.

Ramses II statue

The statue of Ramses II was discovered in 1820 by the Explorer Giovanni Batista Cavellia, near Memphis in Egypt.

Ramses II was the third pharaoh of the 19th Egyptian dynasty. He is regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom, who ruled for the longest time any pharaoh did.

There are protective cartridges on the shoulders of the statue, with Ramses wearing a dagger, and two heads representing Horus.

The statue’s hand is closed to represent intensity and strength, while the statue’s smiling face represents mercy and tolerance.

The ancient columns

The museum also contains columns representing the late age of the ancient Egyptian civilisation, through displaying the lotus flower.