Khufu
Khufu (in
Greek known as
Cheops) was a
Pharaoh of
Ancient Egypt's
Old Kingdom. He reigned from around
2589 BC to
2566 BC. Khufu was the second pharaoh of the
Fourth Dynasty. He is generally accepted as being the builder of the
Great Pyramid of Giza, the only one of the
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing.
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Small statue of Khufu in Cairo Museum |
Khufu was the son of King
Sneferu and Queen
Hetepheres. Unlike his father, Khufu was remembered as a cruel and ruthless pharaoh in later folklore. Khufu had several sons, one of which,
Djedefra, was his immediate successor. He had a daughter named
Queen Hetepheres II.
It is generally thought that Khufu came to the throne in his twenties, and reigned for about 23 years, which is the number ascribed to him by the
Turin Papyrus. Other sources from much later periods suggest a significantly longer reign:
Manetho gives him a reign of 65 years, and
Herodotus states that he reigned 50 years.
He started building his pyramid at
Giza, the first to be built in this area.
[Figures: King Khufu (BBC). Accessed April 8.] Based on inscriptional evidence, it is also likely that he led military expeditions into the Sinai, Nubia and Libya.
[Guardian's Egypt: The Pharaoh Khufu] The
Westcar Papyrus, which was written well after his reign during the
Middle Kingdom or later, depicts the pharaoh being told magical tales by his sons
Khafra and
Djedefra. This story cycle depicts Khufu as mean and cruel, and is ultimately frustrated in his attempts to ensure that his dynasty survives past his two sons. Whether or not this story cycle is true is unknown, but Khufu's negative reputation lasted at least until the time of
Herodotus, who was told further stories of that king's cruelty to his people and to his own family in order to ensure the construction of his pyramid. What is known for certain is that his funerary cult lasted until the
26th Dynasty, which was the last native-Egyptian royal dynasty, almost 2,000 years after his death.
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Picture of the Great Pyramid. |
Only one miniature statuette has been fully attributed to this pharaoh. Since he is credited with building the single largest building of ancient times, it is ironic that the only positively identified royal sculpture of his is also the smallest that has ever been found: a 7.6cm (3 inch) ivory statue that bears his name. It was discovered not at Giza, but in a
temple in
Abydos during an excavation by
William Flinders Petrie in
1903. Originally this piece was found without the head, but bearing the pharaoh's name. Realizing the importance of this discovery, Petrie halted all further excavation on the site until the head was found three weeks later after an intensive sieving of the sand from the area where the base had been discovered.
[Kevin Jackson and Jonathan Stamp, Building the Great Pyramid (Firefly Books, 2003) ISBN 1552977196] This piece is now on display in the
Egyptian Museum,
Cairo. In more recent years two other likenesses have been tentatively identified as being that of Khufu, based largely on stylistic similarities to the piece discovered by Petrie. One is a colossal head made of red granite of a king wearing the white crown of
Upper Egypt that resides in the
Brooklyn Museum, and the other a fragmentary miniature head made of limestone that also wears the white crown of Upper Egypt, which can be found in the
Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst in
Munich.
[Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999), pp. 194 and 219.]An empty
sarcophagus is located in the King's Chamber inside the pyramid though it is unclear if it was ever used for such a purpose as burial. His
mummy has never been recovered. However, an inscription containing his highest
regnal year, the "Year of the 17th Count of Khufu", first mentioned by Flinders Petrie in an
1883 book and then lost to historians, was rediscovered by
Zahi Hawass in
2001 in one of the relieving chambers within this king's pyramid.
While pyramid construction had been solely for the reigning pharaoh prior to Khufu, his reign saw the construction of several minor pyramid structures that are believed to have been intended for other members of his royal household, amounting to a royal cemetery. Three small pyramids to the east of Khufu's pyramid are tentatively thought to belong to two of his wives, and the third has been ascribed to Khufu's mother
Hetepheres I, whose funerary equipment was found relatively intact in a shaft tomb nearby. A series of
mastabas were created adjacent to the small pyramids, and tombs have been found in this "cemetery". The closest tombs to Khufu's were those belonging to Prince
Kawab and
Khufuhaf and their respective wives. Next closest are the tombs of Prince
Minkhaf and Queens
Hetepheres II, and those of
Meresank II and
Meresank III.
[Aidan Dodson, "An Eternal Harem. Part One: In the Beginning", KMT, Summer 2004, pp. 47-55.] When the largest of these tombs (Tomb G7510) was excavated in
1927, it was found to contain a bust of Prince
Ankhhaf, which can now be seen in the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
*
Bust of Prince Ankhhaf, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accessed April 8, 2005 *
Egypt: Pharaoh Khufu, accessed April 8, 2006.*
Westcar Papyrus, accessed April 8, 2006.*
Egyptian pyramids construction techniques*
Egyptian Fourth Dynasty Family Tree*
Khufu ship
