The Colossi portrayed the deified Amenhotep III, who was depicted in a seated position, with his hands on his knees, and facing East toward the rising sun. These Colossi have sat as guards of his mortuary complex ever since. A mythology grew around the northern statue that included the belief that the strange sound emitted by the statue was the complaint of Memnon to his mother, Dawn. If a visitor was lucky enough to witness Memnon speaking to his mother, it was believed that it was a sign of great favor from the gods. When visitors came to the Colossus, they marked the occasion by carving commemorative inscriptions on the stone statue. A total of 107 inscriptions still survive, ranging in dates from 20–205 CE, all of which have been catalogued by the French editors Bernand and Bernand. Sixty-one of these inscriptions are in Greek, 45 in Latin, and 1 is bilingual.