What type of stone are the Colossi of Memnon carved from?

The Colossi of Memnon are carved from quartzite sandstone. The two enormous seated statues depict Pharaoh Amenhotep III and once guarded the entrance to his vast mortuary temple on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes, modern Luxor.

Their stone was quarried at el-Gabal el-Ahmar near modern Cairo and transported roughly 675 kilometers overland to Thebes. Each colossus weighs an estimated 720 tons, and the statues reach about 18 meters when their stone platforms are included. Their scale made them powerful symbols of royal authority and divine kingship.

The name Memnon is a later Greek and Roman misunderstanding. Ancient visitors associated the northern statue with Memnon, a legendary king and hero of the Trojan War, rather than recognizing both figures as Amenhotep III. Roman travelers also reported that the damaged northern colossus “sang” at dawn after an earthquake in 27 BCE, probably because of temperature and moisture changes in the porous stone.

Granite, diorite, and limestone were all important Egyptian building stones, but they are not the material used for these famous twin statues.