Two colossal quartzite figures, some eighteen metres tall and badly weathered, sit alone facing the sunrise on the road into the West Bank, and almost everyone stops for a photo. They are all that was long visible of the enormous mortuary temple of Amenhotep III, once the largest in Egypt, flattened by earthquake and quarried away over the centuries. Their real fame is a quirk: after an earthquake cracked the northern statue around 27 BC, it began emitting a strange musical note at dawn as the morning warmth expanded the stone. Greek and Roman tourists travelled here to hear the singing Colossus of Memnon and scratched their names on its legs, until Roman restorers repaired the crack and silenced it forever. Behind the statues, ongoing excavation is steadily uncovering more of the buried temple and further shattered colossi. It is a five-minute stop, but a poignant one, and the classic first sight as you cross to the West Bank.
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