From a distance the colossi of Memnon on the Westbank of Luxor look unimpressive due to their deterioration, and most travelers get off their bus and stand at the edge of the car park to take their photos, then they all swarm back onto their buses again unaware of the interest that the Memnon can inspire, do not be discouraged by the appearance and layers of wreckage of the colossi because if you walk over and stand beneath the mighty statues of Amenhotep 111, on closer inspection the right colossi has the most interesting graffiti that has been etched into the stone of it’s legs from the many travellers throughout the centuries to commemorate that they heard the sound or paid homage to the Memnon, words are written in Latin Greek English and the French soldiers during Napoleon’s attempted conquest of Egypt, some of the etched comments written ; Camilius, hora prima semis' audivi Memnoni. Which means, ‘At half-past the first hour I Camilius, have heard the Memnon’ It is believed that Camilius was an early second - century Roman governor of the province of Egypt.
I would love to climb a ladder armed with large sheets of tracing paper and gently rub the inscriptions out onto the paper to be able to decipher all the comments from the travellers that have come to the Memnon over the centuries creating a book on the graffiti of the Memnon, it is one of the largest and most unusual autograph books written in stone that I have ever seen.
The Roman Emperor Hadrian visited the Memnon with his wife the Empress Sabrina and his court, in their company was a poet and companion of the empress Julia Balbilla, she had her own graffiti carved onto the foot of the Memnon which translated reads: ‘I Balbilla, when the rock spoke, heard the voice of the Divine Memnon or Phamenoth. I came here with the lovely Empress Sabina. The Course of the Sun was in its first hour, in the fifteenth year of Hadrian’s reign on the 24th day of the month of Hathor, I wrote this on the 25th day of the month of Hathor
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