"Egypt is not a country we live in but a country that lives within us." - Pope Shenouda III

Africa may have given rise to the first humans, and Egypt probably gave rise to the first great civilizations, which continue to fascinate modern societies across the globe nearly 5,000 years later. From the Library and Lighthouse of Alexandria to the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Ancient Egyptians produced several wonders of the world, revolutionized architecture and construction, created some of the world's first systems of mathematics and medicine, and established language and art that spread across the known world. With world-famous leaders like King Tut and Cleopatra, it's no wonder that today's world has so many Egyptologists.

For almost four millennia, the Great Pyramids of Ancient Egypt have been widely hailed as the single greatest archeological feat man has ever accomplished. The Great Pyramid at Giza is the only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world to have survived into the modern age. Unlike so many pieces of the historical record which have been "re-discovered," relatively recently (in the grand scheme of things) in their 4,000 years of existence, the Great Pyramids have never allowed themselves to be truly forgotten by the human civilization which has never ceased to regard them with wonder and awe.

Thus, it is somewhat ironic that over time, people have managed to retain hardly any information about Memphis, the ancient Egyptian capital in which the pharaohs responsible for the Great Pyramids resided and ruled. At some point, even the precise location of Memphis came to be forgotten, and the city was believed lost to the annals of time.