Paper short abstract:

At the entrance of Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple two of the largest statues ever built in pharaonic Egypt were erected. Although the cultic building has perished shortly after the pharaoh’s death, the imposing statues kept firm in their place and, centuries later, became a place of pilgrimage.

Paper long abstract:

Built during a reign known for its attention to the Arts, the colossal statues known as Memnon Colossi were part of Amenhotep III's mortuary temple. However, these sculptures gained popularity centuries later, in the Roman Epoch, receiving visitors from various points of the Ancient World.

Amenhotep III's mortuary temple disappeared shortly after his reign. On the one hand, the building was partly destroyed by an earthquake in the thirteenth century B.C., and on the other, what remained of it was used by the pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty to build their own mortuary temples.

In this paper we wish to demonstrate how a symbol - in this case, a statue representing a king of the eighteenth dynasty - can be "usurped" and reused later in time. The appropriation of one of the statues occurred in the Roman Period after another earthquake made alterations to its structure, causing it to produce sound. The noises that came out of the sculpture were perceived as a manifestation of the divine and eventually it was associated with Memnon, a roman hero that died in Troy. Thus the name by which we still call the colossal statues today.

The statues that once had the magical function of protecting the pharaoh's temple were by the time of the Romans a pilgrimage site, where people came to witness the mystical phenomenon and engrave a sign of their presence on the statue itself, attesting their communication with the divine.