Pyramid of Khafre at Giza: The Second Pyramid and Its Complex

The Pyramid of Khafre is the second-largest of the three pyramids of Giza, built around 2570 BC for Khafre, a son of Khufu. Originally about 143.5 metres (471 feet) high, it still has part of its smooth limestone casing at the top. Together with its temples, causeway and the nearby Great Sphinx, it forms one of the best-preserved royal funerary complexes of Egypt’s Old Kingdom.

Background: Khafre and the Fourth Dynasty

Khafre, called Chephren by the Greeks, belonged to the Fourth Dynasty, the age of the great pyramid builders. His father Khufu had built the Great Pyramid of Giza. After Khufu, another son, Djedefre, ruled briefly and began a pyramid at Abu Rawash to the north. Khafre then returned to Giza to build beside his father.

The dates of his reign are uncertain. Many reference works place it roughly between 2558 and 2532 BC, but other chronologies differ by several decades. His successor, after a short and obscure interval, was Menkaure, who built the third and smallest of the Giza pyramids.

Size and construction

Khafre’s pyramid has a square base of about 215 metres (706 feet) per side. Its sides rise at about 53 degrees, slightly steeper than the Great Pyramid. Today it is about 136 metres (446 feet) high, having lost its top few metres.

The builders set the pyramid on ground about 10 metres higher than Khufu’s. As a result it looks taller than the Great Pyramid from many angles, though it was in fact slightly smaller. On the north and west sides they cut deep into the sloping bedrock to create a level platform, leaving the lowest courses partly carved from the living rock.

The outer casing was of fine white limestone, and the bottom course was of red granite brought from Aswan. Most of the casing was later removed for building in Cairo, but a section near the summit survives, giving the pyramid its distinctive cap.

Quarries and workforce

Much of the core stone was quarried on the Giza plateau itself, close to the pyramid. The deep cuttings left around Khafre’s pyramid and in the area of the Sphinx show where huge volumes of limestone were removed. The finer casing stone came from Tura across the Nile, and the granite from Aswan, about 800 kilometres upstream.

The same organised workforce that served Khufu probably continued under Khafre. Excavations of the workers’ town south of the plateau, with its bakeries, breweries and storehouses, show that the builders were fed and housed by the state. Their cemeteries nearby, with tombs of overseers and craftsmen, confirm that they were Egyptian workers rather than slaves.

Inside the pyramid

The pyramid has two entrances on its north side. One opens in the pavement in front of the pyramid, and the other is about 11 metres up the face. Both lead down to passages that join and continue to a single burial chamber.

The burial chamber was cut into the bedrock and roofed with large limestone slabs set as a gable. A granite sarcophagus was sunk into the floor. Compared with the Great Pyramid, the interior is simple, with no high chambers built inside the body of the pyramid.

The pyramid complex

On the east side stood a large mortuary temple, where offerings were made for the king’s spirit. From there a causeway about half a kilometre long ran down to a valley temple near the edge of the floodplain.

The valley temple is one of the best-preserved Old Kingdom buildings. Its walls are faced with massive blocks of red granite, and its floors were of white Egyptian alabaster. Inside, sockets in the floor once held some 23 statues of the king.

In 1860 the French archaeologist Auguste Mariette found a famous seated statue of Khafre in a pit in this temple. Carved from a hard dark stone, it shows the king with the falcon god Horus spreading his wings behind his head. It is now in Egyptian museum collections in Cairo.

Beside the valley temple lies the Great Sphinx of Giza, carved from the same bedrock, with its own temple in front. Most Egyptologists consider the Sphinx part of Khafre’s complex. A small satellite pyramid stood on the south side of Khafre’s pyramid, and several pits for boats were cut around it, though they were found empty, unlike the pits that held the Khufu ship.

Belzoni and later exploration

For centuries Europeans believed the second pyramid had no interior. The Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, recorded that it had no underground chambers and was smaller than its neighbour.

On 2 March 1818 the Italian strongman and explorer Giovanni Battista Belzoni found the upper north entrance and reached the burial chamber. He discovered that he was not the first: an Arabic inscription showed that the chamber had been entered in the medieval period. The sarcophagus lid was broken, and inside were only some bones, later identified as those of an animal, probably a bull.

Belzoni painted his name and the date on the chamber wall, where it can still be seen. Later surveys by Richard Howard Vyse and John Shae Perring in 1837, and by Flinders Petrie in 1880–1882, measured the pyramid in detail.

Key people

• Khafre (Chephren): Fourth Dynasty king and son of Khufu, for whom the pyramid, temples and probably the Sphinx were made. Many statues of him survive, more than for his father.
• Giovanni Battista Belzoni: Italian explorer and former circus strongman who opened the pyramid in 1818 and later wrote a popular account of his work in Egypt.
• Auguste Mariette: French archaeologist and founder of Egypt’s antiquities service, who excavated the valley temple and found the seated statue of Khafre in 1860.
• Flinders Petrie: British archaeologist whose precise survey of 1880–1882 set the standard for measuring the Giza pyramids.

Myths and facts

A common claim is that Khafre’s pyramid is the tallest at Giza. It is not, though it can look that way because of its higher base and intact top. Another myth, from ancient writers, is that Khafre was a cruel tyrant who closed the temples. Herodotus repeated this about both Khufu and Khafre, but it reflects stories told long after their time, not contemporary evidence.

By the numbers

Timeline

• c. 2570 BC: Construction of Khafre’s pyramid complex at Giza.
• c. 440 BC: Herodotus describes the pyramid and its builder.
• Medieval period: Intruders enter the burial chamber; most casing is later removed.
• 1818, 2 March: Giovanni Belzoni reaches the burial chamber.
• 1837: Vyse and Perring survey the pyramid.
• 1860: Auguste Mariette finds the seated statue of Khafre in the valley temple.
• 1880–1882: Flinders Petrie surveys the Giza pyramids.
• 1979: The Giza pyramids are inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Why it matters

The Pyramid of Khafre preserves features lost elsewhere at Giza: casing at the summit, an intact valley temple and a clear layout linking pyramid, causeway and Sphinx. It shows how a Fourth Dynasty king’s tomb worked as a complete religious complex, and it completes the trio that later included the Pyramid of Menkaure.