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The twin statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III were built around 1350 BC in the Theban Necropolis
(Memnonium) to guard the royal mortuary temple, of which hardly a trace remains today. The quartzite
sandstone blocks used were quarried at el-Gabal el-Ahmar near Cairo, and transported over 400 miles
overland, because they were too heavy to be shipped upriver. An earthquake in 27 BC severely damaged
the nearly identical colossi, destroying the eastern colossus from the waist up.  Local legend says that
the ruptured statues often "sang" after that, usually at dawn. Early accounts of the phenomenon were
written by Philostratus, Juvenal, Pausanius and Tacitus, and others.
  Two centuries later, the Roman Emperor Septimus Severus, who had visited the statues, but did not hear
 the sound (the last recorded reliable mention of which dates from AD 196),  ordered a restoration of the
damaged collossi and their pedestals in AD 199. Sandstone was imported from Edfu, north of Aswan for
the project, which included reconstruction of the torso and head of the eastern colossus to match the twin.