Note 56 — Chapter XIX

Pausanias correctly states the vocal statue of Memnon at Thebes was by the natives called Phamenoph (that is, Amunoph III.), the name it actually bears; and it certainly is curious, that this is the very king whose name we find in Ethiopia at Solib, and on the lion, as I have stated, brought from Gibel el Birkel. That king may possibly have been master of a portion of Ethiopia, and styled himself, as was often the custom, king of the Upper and Lower Countries; but he could not have been the Ethiopian Memnon, who marched to the succour of Troy: for the king who reigned in Egypt at the time of the Trojan war was Osirei, or Menephtah II.; and Amunoph III. died more than a century and a half before that event. As no edifices remain bearing the name of this king south of Solib, which is not a hundred miles above the second cataract, I see no just reason, as I have said before, for supposing that he carried his arms to Gibel el Birkel, much less to Meroe.