City
Memphis
Mit Rahina (Barrington)
Listen to the story
Memphis, the old royal city of the pharaohs, survives as a field of ruins near the village of Mit Rahina in Egypt. Its name grew out of that of the pyramid town of King Pepi the First, and the Greek historian Herodotus knew an older name too, the White Wall, and credited its founding to Menes, the legendary first pharaoh. The map sets it apart from most Egyptian places, at a point where several roads meet. The Greek geographer Strabo still called it second only to Alexandria, though parts of the city already lay abandoned and drifted over with desert sand.