This article is about The Egyptian pharaoh Khafre. For the encryption algorithm, seeKhufu and Khafre.
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Khafre was a son of kingKhufu and the brother and successor ofDjedefre.[3] Khafre is thought by some to be the son of QueenMeritites I due to an inscription where he is said to honor her memory.
Kings-wife, his beloved, devoted to Horus, Mertitytes. King's-wife, his beloved, Mertitytes; beloved of the Favorite of the Two Goddesses; she who says anything whatsoever and it is done for her. Great in the favor of Snefr[u]; great in the favor of Khuf[u], devoted to Horus, honored under Khafre. Merti[tyt]es.
[Breasted; Ancient Records]
Others argue that the inscription just suggests that this queen died during the reign of Khafre.[4] Khafre may be a son of QueenHenutsen instead.[5]
Khafre had several wives and he had at least 12 sons and 3 or 4 daughters.
Persenet may have been a wife of Khafre based on the location of her tomb. She was the mother ofNikaure.[3]
Other children of Khafre are known, but no mothers have been identified. Further sons includeAnkhmare,Akhre,Iunmin, andIunre. A daughter namedRekhetre is known andHemetre may have been a daughter or granddaughter as well.[3]
There is no agreement on the date of his reign. Some authors say it was between 2558 BC and 2532 BC. While theTurin King List length for his reign is blank, andManetho exaggerates his reign as 66 years, most scholars believe it was between 24 and 26 years, based upon the date of the Will of Prince Nekure which was carved on the walls of this Prince'smastaba tomb. The will is dated anonymously to the Year of the 12th Count and is assumed to belong to Khafre since Nekure was his son. Khafre's highest year date is the "Year of the 13th occurrence" which is a painted date on the back of a casing stone belonging to mastaba G 7650.[6] This would imply a reign of 24–25 years for this king if thecattle count was biannual during the Fourth Dynasty.
Khafre's Pyramid and the Great Sphinx in 20071910 Drawing of Khafre's pyramid complex. A causeway connected the Valley Temple (bottom-right) to the Pyramid Temple (top-left).
Khafre built the second-largestpyramid atGiza. The Egyptian name of the pyramid wasWer(en)-Khafre which means "Khafre is Great".[7]
The pyramid has a subsidiary pyramid, labeledG2-a. It is not clear who was buried there. Sealings have been found of a King's eldest son of his body etc. and the Horus name of Khafre.[7]
The valley temple of Khafre was located closer to the Nile and would have stood right next to the Sphinx temple. Inscriptions from the entrance way have been found which mention Hathor and Bubastis. Blocks have been found showing the partial remains of an inscription with the Horus name of Khafre (Weser-ib). Mariette discovered statues of Khafre in 1860. Several were found in a well in the floor and were headless. But other complete statues were found as well.[7]
The mortuary temple was located very close to the pyramid. From the mortuary temple come fragments of maceheads inscribed with Khafre's name as well as somestone vessels.[7]
Thesphinx is said to date to the time of Khafre. This is supported by the proximity of the sphinx to Khafre's pyramid temple complex, and a certain resemblance (despite damage) to the facial structure seen in his statues. The Great Sphinx of Giza may have been carved out as a guardian of Khafre's pyramid, and as a symbol of royal power. It became deified during the time of the New Kingdom.[8]
The ancient Egyptian historianManetho called Khafre "Sûphis II". and credited him with a rulership of 66 years, but didn't make any further comments about him.[9][10][11][12]
Contrary to modern Egyptologists and archaeological findings, Greek historiansDiodorus andHerodotus, writing more than 2,000 years after King Khafre, depicted him as atyrant who had followed his fatherKhêops on the throne. Herodotus and Diodorus say that Khafre ruled for 56 years.[9][10][11]
They describe a king Menkaure (whom they call "Mykerînós") as the follower of Khafre and that this king was the counterpart of his two predecessors: Herodotus describes Menkaure as bringing peace and piety back to Egypt.[9][10][11]
Depressions for statues in the mortuary temple of King Khafre in Giza
Of all the rulers of the Old Kingdom, Khafre is evidenced by the greatest number of statues. Almost all of them come from Giza, partly from the official necropolis there, but mainly from the area around the temple complexes of the Khafre pyramid. In a large hall of the valley temple, 23 depressions have been made in the ground, in which originally life-size statues stood. One of these depressions is wider than the others, there may have been two statues here. It has been suggested that these 24 statues are related to the hours of the day. All of these statues were removed from their location at some point after the reign of Khafre. Auguste Mariette found nine of them during excavations in 1860 (Inv.No. CG 9 to CG 17)[21] and fragments of a tenth (CG 378) [22] in a pit within the valley temple. These statues are now in theEgyptian Museum inCairo.
^Spalinger, Anthony.Dated Texts of the Old Kingdom, SAK21 (1994), p. 287.
^abcdPorter, Bertha and Moss, Rosalind, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Statues, Reliefs and Paintings Volume III: Memphis, Part I Abu Rawash to Abusir. 2nd edition (revised and augmented by Dr Jaromir Malek, 1974. Retrieved fromgizapyramids.orgArchived 2008-10-11 at theWayback Machine
^Markowitz, Haynes, Freed (2002).Egypt in the Age of the Pyramids.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^abcSiegfried Morenz:Traditionen um Cheops. In:Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, vol. 97, Berlin 1971,ISSN0044-216X, pp. 111–118.
^abcDietrich Wildung: Die Rolle ägyptischer Könige im Bewußtsein ihrer Nachwelt. Band 1: Posthume Quellen über die Könige der ersten vier Dynastien (= Münchener Ägyptologische Studien. Bd. 17). Hessling, Berlin 1969, pp. 152–192.
^abcWolfgang Helck:Geschichte des Alten Ägypten (=Handbuch der Orientalistik, vol. 1.;Chapter 1: Der Nahe und der Mittlere Osten, vol 1.). BRILL, Leiden 1968,ISBN9004064974, pp. 23–25 & 54–62.
^Aidan Dodson:Monarchs of the Nile. American University in Cairo Press, (2000),ISBN9774246004, pp. 29–34.
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