Menes is the king who, by ancient tradition, united Upper and Lower Egypt into one kingdom around 3100 BC and founded the city of Memphis as its capital. He stands at the start of Egypt’s First Dynasty and of 3,000 years of pharaonic history.
Menes, Narmer or Aha?
The name Menes comes from later king lists and from the Egyptian priest Manetho, who wrote a history of Egypt in Greek in the 3rd century BC. No monument from his own time carries this name. Most Egyptologists identify him with King Narmer, whose famous palette shows him wearing the crowns of both Upper and Lower Egypt, or with his successor Hor-Aha.
The legend
Manetho wrote that Menes reigned for 62 years and was carried off by a hippopotamus. Later Greek writers said he taught the Egyptians to worship the gods and to live in luxury. These stories tell us more about how later Egyptians remembered the founder of their state than about the real king.
Learn more
Read about the unification of Egypt, and see the Narmer Palette at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir on our Cairo day tours.
