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It may be that the city was founded by Aha or Narmer, the historical originals of Mena or Menés; but we have another theory with regard to its foundation, that it was originally built by King Merpeba Atjab, whose tomb was also discovered at Abydos near those of Aha and Narmer.
It may well be that it was in the reign of Merpeba, not in that of Aha or Narmer, that Memphis was founded. The XIXth Dynasty lists of course say nothing about Mena or Merpeba having founded Memphis; they only give the names of the kings, nothing more. Herodotus is not, of course, accused of any wilful misstatement in this or in any other matter in which his accuracy is suspected.
Merpeba, of the Ist Dynasty, are correctly given in the later lists, and those of others were simply misread, e. g. that of Semti of the same dynasty, misread "Hesepti" by the list-makers. On the other hand, Mena himself has become a somewhat doubtful quantity.
Atjab Merpeba = Merbap, Miebis, Ist Dynasty. Qâ Sen = Qebh, Bienehhes, Ist Dynasty. Neneter = Bineneter, Binothris, IId Dynasty. Six of the Abydos kings have thus been identified with names in the lists and in Manetho; that is to say, we now know the real names of six of the earliest Egyptian monarchs, whose appellations are given us under mutilated forms by the later list-makers. Prof.
Therefore it may be considered quite probable that the "Menés" who founded Memphis was Merpeba, the fifth or sixth king of the Ist Dynasty, whom Tunure, a thousand years before the time of Herodotus and his informants, placed at the head of the Memphite "List of Sakkâra."
Petrie himself inclines to believe. The first identification was made by Prof. Sethe, of Gottingen, who pointed out that the names Semti and Merpeba on a vase-fragment found by M. Amélineau were in reality those of the kings Hesepti and Merbap of the lists, the Ousaphaïs and Miebis of Manetho. The perfectly certain identifications are these: Den Semti = Hesepti, Ousaphaïs, Ist Dynasty.
He merely wrote down what he was told by the Egyptians themselves, and Merpeba was sufficiently near in time to Aha to be easily confounded with him by the scribes of the Persian period, who no doubt ascribed everything to "Mena" that was done by the kings of the Ist and IId Dynasties.
If Osiris-Khentamenti at Abydos had his tablet of kings, so should Osiris-Seker at Sakkâra. But Tunure does not begin his list with Mena; his initial king is Merpeba. For him Merpeba was the first monarch to be commemorated at Sakkâra. Does not this look very much as if the strictly historical Merpeba, not the rather legendary and confused Mena, was regarded as the first Memphite king?
Merpeba is the oldest king whose name is absolutely identified with one occurring in the XIXth Dynasty king-lists and in Manetho. In both the lists and in Manetho he stands fifth in order from Mena, and he was therefore the sixth king of the Ist Dynasty. That is to say, the contemporary evidence makes him the fifth king from Aha, the first original of "Menés."
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