Colossi of Memnon

Two seated quartzite giants have marked the entrance to Amenhotep III's mortuary temple on Luxor's West Bank since roughly 1350 BCE, and they're usually the first monument travelers see on any West Bank route — visible from the roadside before your vehicle even reaches the ticket booths at Valley of the Kings. Each colossus rises about 18 meters (60 feet) and weighs close to 700 tons, carved from a single block of quartzite sandstone quarried at Gebel el-Ahmar near modern Cairo and hauled more than 675 km down the Nile, a feat of ancient logistics that still puzzles Egyptologists.

Their fame outlasted the pharaoh who built them. After a 27 BCE earthquake cracked the northern statue, it began emitting a strange sound each sunrise, most likely caused by dew evaporating from the fractured stone as morning temperatures rose. Ancient Greek and Roman visitors, convinced they were hearing the mythical hero Memnon greet his mother Eos, carved dozens of graffiti inscriptions into its legs — some still legible today. The sound stopped after Roman emperor Septimius Severus repaired the statue around 199 CE, but the misapplied name Memnon stuck for good.

The statues themselves cost nothing to visit and sit in open view year-round. The temple behind them, however — once larger than Karnak — is an active excavation run by the Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project. In December 2025, the mission unveiled two newly restored alabaster colossi inside the temple grounds after nearly three decades of reassembly work, which means there's now genuinely more to see here than a five-minute photo stop.