I Colossi of Memnon durante a trip to Luxor towards the much more famous Valley of the Kings, they are a small stop before an extraordinary beauty. But let's not underestimate the Colossi of Memnon, they too are decidedly beautiful if only for their majesty.
The Colossi are two huge stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, erected along the banks of the Nile, facing the current city of Luxor. The two huge statues were part of the funerary complex erected by Amenhotep III.
The curiosity of these giants is actually their noise. Yes, you read that correctly. One of the two giants in particular every morning at dawn it made strange noises, for this reason the Greek historians gave them this name, associating the colossi with the mythological hero Memnon. The noises were caused by the heating of the rock in the morning, which the ancients interpreted instead as the hero's greeting to his mother Eos, goddess of the dawn.
This strange statue attracted the curiosity of travelers, including important characters. Among these Giulia Balbilla recorded epigrams during her trip to Egypt with the court of the emperor Hadrian and his wife Vibia Sabina. After a restoration, carried out in Roman times at the behest of the emperor Septimius Severus, from 199 AD the noises were no longer heard. Too bad, right?
