In addition to crediting Menes with the unification of Egypt by war and administrative measures, tradition attributes to him the founding of the capital, Memphis, near present-day Cairo. Excavations at Ṣaqqārah, the cemetery for Memphis, have revealed that the earliest royal tomb located there belongs to the reign of Aha. Manetho called Menes a Thinite—i.e., a native of the Thinite province in Upper Egypt—and, in fact, monuments belonging to the kings Narmer and Aha, either of whom may be Menes, have been excavated at Abydos, a royal cemetery in the Thinite nome. Narmer also appears on a slate palette (a decorated stone on which cosmetics were pulverized) alternately wearing the red and white crowns of Lower and Upper Egypt (see crowns of Egypt), a combination symbolic of unification, and shown triumphant over his enemies. Actually, the whole process probably required several reigns, and the traditional Menes may well represent the kings involved. According to Manetho, Menes reigned for 62 years and was killed by a hippopotamus.