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But it evidently was to the Southerners that Memphis owed its importance and its eventual promotion to the position of capital of the united kingdom. Then the dwarf Phtah saw himself rivalled by another Phtah of Southern Egyptian origin, who had been installed at Memphis by the Southerners.
First of all the visitor will remark, in the first division of the first case, a sandstone figure, seven inches high, seated upon a throne with lotus sceptres, and attendant deities; this is Amenra, the Jupiter of the Egyptians; and in the same case Phtah, the Vulcan of the Egyptians, with a gour, or animal-headed sceptre in both hands, and an oskh, or semi-circular collar, about his neck; the Egyptian Saturn, Sabak, with the head of a crocodile, with the shenti about his loins; and Thoth, the Egyptian Mercury, with an ibis head surmounted by a crescent moon.
Here were also found a statue of Harpocrates, a portion of a statue of Phtah, with an inscription of Ramses II., a sphinx and tombs of the twentieth century B.C. containing many small relics of antiquity. Professor Petrie went on from here to the site of Tell Defenneh, the Tahpanhes of the Bible, called Taphne in the version of the Septuagint.
It may be that here is another connection between the Northern Egyptians and the Semites. The name "Phtah," the "Opener," is definitely Semitic. We may then regard the dwarf Phtah as originally a non-Egyptian god of the Northerners, probably Semitic in origin, and his town also as antedating the conquest.
But though the temple of Phtah at Memphis, in which the state ceremonies were performed, had risen in beauty and importance by the repeated additions of the later kings, who had fixed the seat of government in Lower Egypt, yet the Sun, or Amon-Ra, or Kneph-Ra, the god of Thebes, or Jupiter-Amnion, as he was called by the Greeks, was the god under whose spreading wings Egypt had seen its proudest days.
On this occasion he came to Memphis by barge, in grand state, where he was met by the priests of Upper and Lower Egypt, and crowned in the temple of Phtah with the double crown, called Pschent, the crown of the two provinces. After the ceremony, the priests made the Decree in honour of the king, which is carved on the stone known by the name of the Rosetta Stone, in the British Museum.
The priests of Memphis knew the names of the kings who, one after the other, had built a new portico to their great temple of Phtah; but as to when or by whom the pyramids were built, they had perhaps less knowledge than the present day historian.
The Princess, with all the fury of a woman scorned, denounces Rhadames as a traitor. He is tried for treason and condemned to be buried alive in the vaults under the temple of the god Phtah. Pardon is offered him if he will accept the hand of Amneris, but he refuses and descends to the tomb, where he finds Aida awaiting him.
The priestesses behind the scene to the accompaniment of harps, and the priests in front with sonorous chant, invoke the aid of the god Phtah, while other priestesses execute the sacred dance. An impressive duet between Ramfis and Rhadames closes the act.
Miserable Arab villages, such as Saqqâra, have fixed themselves in the ruins of Memphis, and from a thick palm grove one can look with astonishment upon the torso of the powerful Ramses II. lying solitary there, the last witness to the glory of the temple of Phtah, before which this colossus once had its stand.
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