Standing roughly eighteen meters high, the two monolithic statues originally guarded the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III, built around 1350 BC. While the surrounding temple complex was gradually dismantled over centuries by seasonal Nile floods, earthquakes, and quarrying, the twin stone giants remained anchored in place.

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What makes the northern statue—the one captured in Franklin’s frame—so historically layered is what happened after a severe earthquake struck the region in 27 BC. The tremor cracked the upper torso, creating deep internal fissures throughout the quartzite stone. Shortly after, local residents and early travelers noticed something extraordinary: every morning, right as the sun rose over the horizon, the statue began to sing.

As dawn broke, the sharp temperature change heated the cold, damp night air trapped deep inside the stone’s porous fractures. As the expanding air forced its way out through the cracks, it produced a high-pitched, metallic resonance. To ancient listeners, it sounded remarkably like a plucked harp string or a ringing strike on brass.

The Greco-Roman world quickly attached a legend to the phenomenon. They identified the figure not as an Egyptian Pharaoh, but as Memnon, the mythic son of Eos (the goddess of the dawn). Slain by Achilles during the Trojan War, Memnon was believed to be greeting his mother with a mournful cry every morning as she ushered in the daylight.

Word spread across the Mediterranean, turning the site into one of the earliest documented tourist destinations in human history. Travelers made long pilgrimages across the Roman Empire just to stand in the dust at daybreak and hear the statue speak. Many left physical proof of their visit: dozens of Latin and Greek inscriptions were carved directly into the pedestal and legs of the figure. Among the visitors who listened to the morning sound were the geographer Strabo, the poet Julia Balbilla, and Emperor Hadrian alongside Empress Sabina in the year 130 AD.

The morning song continued for over two centuries until around 199 AD, when Emperor Septimius Severus initiated a large-scale restoration to repair the crumbling stone blocks. The structural repairs successfully stabilized the monument, but by sealing the internal fissures, they permanently silenced the voice of Memnon.

That tension between silence, physical decay, and endurance is precisely what Stuart Franklin catches in this print. Franklin, a long-time member of Magnum Photos who served as the agency's president in the late 2000s, is best known internationally for his iconic photojournalism—most notably capturing the "Tank Man" during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing. Yet much of his broader body of work shifts toward long-term landscape and environmental studies, exploring how human history leaves marks on geography.

In this photograph, Franklin avoids the temptation of romanticizing or over-dramatizing the Egyptian landscape. There are no heavy, forced contrasts or theatrical angles. Instead, he approaches the colossus with a calm, analytical eye. The print displays a beautiful, full-range tonal scale on traditional fiber-based paper. You can trace the rough texture of the weathered quartzite grain, the eroded features of the face, and the flat agricultural fields sweeping out toward the distant rocky bluffs of Thebes.

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It fits naturally into the collection because it operates on several levels at once. It functions as a precise architectural record, a nod to the deep literary memory of antiquity, and a demonstration of classic late-20th-century documentary printmaking. It reminds us why we collect original physical prints in the first place: to hold a moment where modern eyes look back across thousands of years of stone and story, captured in a single sheet of silver and paper.

Small Talk / BLOG