MEMNON

In Greek Mythology, a fabulous king of Ethiopia, son of the godde Aurora, who is said to have a isted the Trojans in the siege of Troy, and to have been slain by Achilles. Several Egyptian kings of this name are also mentioned by different Greek writers. But the name is, in fact, supposed to be a general appellation or epithet (Mei-amun, beloved qf Amman) horroyied. by the Greeks from the Egyptian language, and erroneously applied bv them to particular individuals. The famous statue called by the Greeks Memnon, at Thebes in Upper Egypt, which po e ed the real or imaginary property of emitting a sound like that of a harp, at the rising of the sun, is supposed to have been in the building called by M. ChampoUion the Rhame eion, from its founder Rhameses, or Sesostris, of which the stupendous ruins are still seen between Medinet- Habou and Kournah. (See ChampoUion, Lettres icrites d"Egi/pte et de Nubie, p. 261.) The statue of black granite m the British Museum, already styled the brother of the younger Memnon, was foimd in the Rhame eion. The reaf Memnonium was. 730 MENDICITY. however, probably the temple erected by Amenoph, or Amenothph. (ChampoUion, ib. p. 303.) [s. 743]